I was once waiting for a bus as I travelled to teach a morning class. After a while of waiting for the bus to turn up and no sign of it appearing, a woman walked past and informed me, and the other people waiting, that the bus had been diverted as there had been a crash further up the road and the road was blocked. So myself and two old ladies who had been sitting next to me walked down the road till we reached the new diverted bus stop. As I sat with the two women I was aware that I felt quite tired and a sense of feeling isolated and unconnected from myself and my environment. The old lady next to me was telling the other lady that she was anxious, because she was planning to meet her daughter who was waiting for her and she had no way of letting her know she was running late. As I heard the conversation I was aware that I felt separate and removed from the world around me and the two women. I slowly became aware of this deep tension inside of me, one part wanting to stay isolated and detached and something else in me that was reminded of the novelist E M Forster’s famous words “only connect”.
After sitting with this tension for about a minute, I then reached into my pocket and produced my mobile phone and offered to call the woman’s daughter, to let her know her mother was okay. As soon as I spoke to the old woman and I came into relationship with her, I felt something shift in me, as if I had suddenly surrendered and let the world into my experience again and connected to a shared humanity. The old woman was relieved and happy that her daughter had been contacted. I share this story as it reminded me of how so often in our lives we can feel isolated and alone, and how challenging that view and trying to engage and reach out to others reminds us of our interconnectedness to all life and the responsibility we have for the world we live in.
“The important element is the way in which all things are connected. Every thought and action sends shivers of energy into the world around us, which affects all creation. Perceiving the world as a web of connectedness helps us to overcome the feelings of separation that hold us back and cloud our vision. This connection with all life increases our sense of responsibility for every move, every attitude, allowing us to see clearly that each soul does indeed make a difference to the whole.” ― Emma Restall Orr, Druid/Poet
Image Jonathan Cooper