Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Enlightenment at Lower Latitudes

Life’s toughest questions are often answered in the most the unlikely places. This is one reason I love being here in the Caribbean. It is life on a human scale. For example, at these lower latitudes every sunset provides a rare moment of enlightenment and opportunity known as a Green Flash. If atmospheric conditions are just perfect, as the orange orb plops down past the sea’s horizon line, a Green Flash may burst up from the string of that horizon line for the slightest of moments. Every evening, the sun when unobscured, provides the possibility in every person’s mind that a wonderous enlightenment may occur. I have been extremely fortunate to see four Green Flashes in my 50 plus trips to the Caribbean and every Green Flash aroused an endorphine-induced rush that filled my heart with pure bliss. Last night, near sunset I scorched my retinas for ten minutes as I stared westward from Snagg’s beach here on the north shore of Carriacou. The sun descends fast, so you keep your eyes glued. Tonight the magical moment, which often forecasts awareness and and enlightenment could appear, conditions looked right. Closer, closer, now down … no! Not tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.
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“No problem mahn. No wohrry, Ahlain. Dat’s ahl yu need tu rememba’ Ahlain. No problem mahn," Snaggy softly said.

Just three words. No need for a Green Flash tonight. I just received my enlightenment. “Jus’ tree wohds.” My best friend in the Caribbean, Cuthbert Snagg, has just blindsided me once again with a brillant take on life. Since the moment Snaggy uttered those words, I cannot stop thinking how much meaning can be squeezed from this three-word nugget of wisdom. I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe that everything that happens, does so for a reason. We just have to be aware. In a blink I knew exactly why Cuthbert enlightened my mind at this moment, lifting tons of mental weight that has been compressing my shoulders for three years, since my cancer era. It is what I called the “when to go dilemma.”
....
Contemplating leaving my worklife after 43 years is so difficult because my work place is my place of belonging, my place of acceptance and caring, even of being honored. It is my specific place in the world, and a big chunk of my personal identity. The decision has always been an emotional, gut-wrenching experience – up until now!

There were always two issues. The first is that I limited myself to a single view of the dilemma. I was looking through a single lens at the issue. I forgot that the world is a Disco Ball comprised of multiple mirrors. I had only been looking through a single reflector.

The second issue is that I and many other people in their 60’s see the situation as the “End” of something. Please people, let’s spin the Disco Ball! This transition is not the End, it is the Beginning!
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“Ahlain, yu use de wrong wohd, mahn,” Snaggy enlightened me causually from his beach chair.”It noht be ‘Re-Tirement,’ it be ‘Re-Hirement.’ No problem mahn, jus’ tink dat way.” Cuthbert concluded, his voice filled with self assurance and confidence.

Cuthbert, you Kyak (Carriacouian) Einstein. You enlightened human Green Flash. You saw the human side of my dilemma, and distilled the solution into three simple words, ‘no problem mahn.”

“It is suddenly as clear as the sea and as exciting as a Green Flash.” I responded to Cuthbert. Leaving my job, regardless of seniority, frees me to reinvent myself, like Cher or Madonna, but in a more personally meaningful way. I can be whatever or whomever I want to be. I am now in a toystore or opportunities. I have gained freedom through enlightenment and Snaggy knew it all along. All I had to do was ask and be aware. Watch out people, I have a heap of ideas and the Green Flash may be headed your way. No problem mahn.

Hillsborough, Carriacou
West Indies

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