Web of Life

[jerboa]

What does the Web of Life mean to others?

I've thought it is my experience of other people and how contact between myself and those people becomes how we think and feel about each other.

[gruntal]

To me the web of life is the inter-connection of things disparate that never the less do lead to often unexpected results. That is not an easy lesson for me to learn. I can read textbooks and teach myself anything academic but if the wisdom of the ages was sitting right next to me in person I couldn't make eye contact.

An interesting example I would not have expected: the first vehicle I ever operated all by myself was a Los Angeles Railway "Huntington Standard" wooden streetcar # 525 at the local trolley museum. I was probably 14 years old at the time. Many years later I had an interest in "esoteric knowledge"; I have not studied the Dead Sea Scrolls but I am interested that they exist and might contain things that had not seen the light of days in some thousands of years. The two have absolutely nothing in common though.

Actually they do! Henry E Huntington created and run the Pacific Electric Railway and then the Los Angeles Railway before retiring to his private estate and amassing a museum quality collection he willed the the City of San Morino when he died. As luck would have it the Huntington Library acquired a complete set of photographs made early on of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 but never told anybody until recently. After decades of foot dragging by the commission to decipher and translate the Dead Sea Scrolls with no published results the Huntington Library "let the cat out of the bag" and revealed they had a copy and made it available.

Sure people interact with each other but they also trade things and information. Long after your dead and gone something is and can be traced back to what you said or did. You may not have planned it that way and thought at the time you had no control over things but life had other ideas!

[jerboa]

So should a person fear those unexpect events, or would that fear corrupt experience and be more likely to result in perceiving bad (fearful) events later in their lives?

[gruntal]

Taken to it's ultimate conclusion nothing ever turns out quite like it is supposed to. Even if it does our perception of it probably wasn't exactly the same as when we started. The prize looks a lot different close up! It still bothers me when you ask for a diamond and get a lump of coal. And vice-versa. Why bother when the results are less like a transaction and more like a "grab bag" ?

Unless of course you really believe there are absolutes in this Cosmos and the only variables are how you and the others use their freedom to pursue the absolute. It is apparently unknown how far off you can stray and still be "on track".

That is very scary. Angels ( I thought) were not supposed to look like 800 pound gorillas.

[sparklekaz]

Dear Jerboa,

A interesting question. I, like George believe that the web of life is a symbolic representation of the way in which human beings are connected to each other by an invisible thread. We all I think, accept the fact that everything we say and do can have far reaching consequences or repercussions. But I also think there are a multitude of subtle affects that are far reaching, which we probably never find out about.

I am sure there are many things we have all done, that we wish we had done differently. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But if you think about it, things are never clear cut. While we would love to be able to change the past, by doing so, would we then be changing all the unexpected positives that occur out of what is a negative situation.

Like it or not, adversity is a great teacher. People find themselves tested in ways they would not have been. Forced out of their comfort zones, stretched beyond their previous experiences, can and often does, bring out hidden strengths and the necessity to learn new skills.

You say, should we fear the unexpected. I say no, for I truly believe that the unexpected comes, to push us beyond our normal behaviour. I believe the unexpected often has the hand of spirit or the divine behind it. A gift, though often disguised as something else. As for fearing an experience because of a previous bad one. I say, always treat any experience as if it was for the first time.

Each situation whilst may appearing similar on the surface, is not. It is unique. No one person is the same. Yes, draw on previous experiences to assert a little more caution. But do not let it spoil something before it has even begun. Just my thoughts on this.

Love and light
Kaz