From A City Called Life Series: Feasting on What Can Be Found
This is based on a photo of feral cats looking for scraps one evening behind a restaurant in Spain, surprised by the light being turned on. It’s made from an old, (1960s) slide and will not enlarge as most of them do.
There have been many “messages” of one sort or another which have helped me throughout my life, from various teachers, friends and traditions. One that really speaks to me is the idea of “feasting on what can be found.” A friend and teacher, with whom I meditated for many years, used to say something like, “If you can’t do what you would really like to do at the time, think about what it is that the desired experience offers you. Then find something else which is available and offers you some of the same.” During this Covid time, many of us do this out of necessity. We can’t go to concerts, so because we need music, we go to virtual ones or play our old CDs, or we can’t travel, so maybe we watch travelogues on TV. Those are obvious ones, but some of our needs or wants take a little figuring out!
One of my mother’s favorite sayings – which used to annoy me as a child, but has stood me in good stead – was, “Enough is as good as a feast !” That has followed me through my life since my wartime and postwar childhood, when substitutions were so necessary. Putting that together with “feasting on what can be found”, today, when due to the pandemic, health issues and aging, I can no longer get around to find or do all I might like to, I don’t have much problem feasting on lots of small joys instead of missing large ones.