The Pendulum

I have a love hate with this blog as I have a love hate with certain people as I have a love hate with writing and myself and the desert and one could even say ice cream.
When I was still in college, I heard the Dalai Lama speak in Sun Valley, Idaho and he mentioned this yin and yang concept, but on a much larger scale. What did he call it? I don’t remember, but he said the world existed like a pendulum and at certain points in history the pendulum was swung at one extreme and slowly it would swing back the other way. The World Wars, the Holocaust, Civil Rights, Vietnam and so on until 9/11 – that’s the Pendulum swung at one extreme, the darkness as it were, the Yin. He said at some point all the negative energy in the world would begin to shift and swing the other way to a more compassionate, understanding, peaceful world – the Yang. He said at this moment we are swinging that way. I hope he’s right. It’s an interesting idea if anything, an idea built upon hope. But I think on a smaller scale, we can apply the concept to our lives. We have all talked before about the light and darkness of life, how we need both those things to appreciate both those things. I think about that a lot – that we can’t understand happiness and lightness without, first, pain; that our lives are swinging back and forth between the two. Who knows what the speed is, if there’s a pattern or when we can expect the shift? But I think the concept is a hopeful one in the end; an acceptance that life is built upon light and dark and we must appreciate the good when it’s good and swing through the bad with courage and knowledge that it will always be so.