Be-er...

Yesterday while talking with my counselor, as always sifting through the pieces of my life, the topic of my being "a giver" came up.  In the hours following our session, I thought that while being 'a giver' may be seem a good thing, at least better than the opposit,  i am thinking possibly not ! I recalled something said by a women running an eating disorder inpatient place, whose process and clients are beinging filmed for Oprah's network , OWN.  This woman said that hers is the only such place where folks with eating disorders from overeating to anorexia and bulimia were treated side by side, "... because these conditions are just flip sides of the same coin." Both of these conditions damage the body and the mind and the lives of others. So... what about this condition of 'giving' ? My dear counselor said there are three types of people : the givers, the takers and the gakers. LOL...  (Gakers are givers with hidden strings, hidden agendas, and i have no place for them in the following example... but HAD to mention them... )
   Ok... so after carefully thinking about what was shared in session, I concluded that maybe being "a giver" or "a taker" is just the flip side of the smae coin, each as detrimental as the other , just in different ways. In that case, what if a more liberating goal for me is to become a "be-er". YES! To just "be" rather than giving or taking. If i am a 'giver' because it makes me feel good (as my counselor notes) how about i give that motive up and just try to "be" and allow situations , rather than motivations, guide my giving and my taking.

Paraphernalia .....

In the top of my private closet I have sacred books, pictures and bins of paraphernalia. There is a fabric i wanted to get to that was in the bottom bin on the top shelf. After carefully unstacking framed pictures and books, and then the first bin, i was able to get the desired bin down and set on the bed. When i opened the first bin, the one stored on the top, the strong fragrance of incense filled my head. There were small sacred pictures, aratike tray, bells, ghee lamp, camphor lamp, boxes of various incenses, a tiny sandalwood elephant.. some framed prayers to Srimate Tulasi, Lord Nrsimhadeva... a picture of my granddaughter at age 8 or so,  standing in front of my altar with Lord Jaganatha, Lord Balarama and Lady Subhadra... head and shoulders gracefully wrapped in a yellow and red Harinam chaddar. If you, my reader, know what i am talking about here then you will understand my next statement... I miss being a devotee... a devotee of Krsna... In the next bin I found the cloth I was looking for, a beautiful piece of embroidered Indian fabric, meant to be a wrap around skirt but saved from that when i found it on the 'new' rack at the local thrift store some years ago. I had used it to wrap more sacred pictures.. Srila Prabhupada and the Parampara... Srimati Tulasi Devi.. the Yamuna River as it runs through Vrndavan... Krsna and Balarama.. Radha Krsna... Srila Prabhupada's Samadhi... Then a piece of clay from Vrndavan for tilak... and then leaves from a sacred tree in Jaganathapuri... More and more layers of items that did not even feel like matter in my hands... but like something so far beyond this material energy... Now i will return to the task at hand, carefully rewrapping all the paraphernalia and once again placing it up on that high shelf... Maybe one day what is at this moment a memory shrouded in ..something... Yes.. shrouded in something .. maya... Or is it that I am shrouded in maya ? Yes.. it has to be that... So, maybe one day i will wake up enough to hold each sacred item or paraphernalia to my real heart...