Open the Blinds
Pull the string and open the blinds to reality
I'm sitting in my office, starting the day. I don't have the lights on yet, but, to let a little light in, I opened the blinds.
Blinds.
They are made up of simple flat slats and string.
Yet think of the varied options that slats and strings create.
You can let the light in. You can shut the light out. You can open them partially.
When it's sunny outside, you can open the blinds partially and let the pattern of sunlight fall on the floor and lose yourself in a daydream.
If you have a cat, as I do, those sun patterns create endless possibilities for bliss in the heated, lighted patches on the floor.
You can raise your blinds and have an unobstructed view of the world. But, if the slats are open, until you raise them, you can see the outside world, but you can't see it as it truly is. You have obstructions in the way…in the form of slats and strings.
It's mostly the slats that obstruct your view and the strings control things.
We often refer to strings as controlling things. We even say, when we feel someone is being controlled, "who's pulling your strings?"
But usually, we're pulling our own strings, or more accurately, we're allowing our own programming to pull our strings.
If you think about “the slats” as the various thoughts and programs that you've allowed into your mind, and “the strings” as your mind itself, you can see what you do in your own life.
Sometimes you completely block out the real world and are only looking at the "slats" - your own emotions and thoughts.
Other times, you partially pull the strings of your mind to open the “slats” and you catch a glimpse of the real world, filtered through the “slats” of your thoughts.
And in rare moments of awakening for all of us, and most moments of awakening in the rarest of us, you pull the strings down and raise the slats completely, clearing your mind of all programming to live fully in the present.
And, in those rare moments, you see the world as it is in all it's wonder and glory.
The open vs closed blinds is such a great methaphor for mindfulness/presence/being.
Strings and blinds and how much we want to connect with oneself or the world works if we are willing to "see". Otherwise the blinds can be fully open but we continue to be blind.