Friday, May 02, 2008

Random Acts of Mindfulness

Grrl Scientist posts about a Lakewood, WA police officer who stopped traffic so a duck and her family could finish crossing a highway. (silent video included in post)

While superficially this is an act of kindness by someone in a position of authority or simply a removal of a potential traffic hazard, on a higher level, this story demonstrates a mindfulness about the parts of Nature that we cannot control, the aspects that will keep living and doing regardless of our own engagements. And we all have a choice to ignore those aspects, or we can spare a bit of the immense power we have to embrace something as fundamental as helping a family in the course of its life.

As May dawns and brings with it the rigorous flush of new life, I urge everyone to consider a random act of mindfulness that appreciates the living world around us.

Kudos go out to Officer Carrell and to the drivers for taking a moment to appreciate life.

(This story was so heartwarming I just had to share it)

5 comments:

Kelly Hills said...

*sniff*
It's been all over most of my friends blogs - Seattle seems to be melting into a puddle of goo over this, which is just lovely to see.

E Doherty said...

Remember the duck family on the Seattle University campus a few years ago? They took up residence in the tiny bit of grasses in the middle of the reflection pool. It was wonderful to see people (everyone!) take a moment to stop and enjoy the ducklings...people would leave with silly grins on their faces.

Anonymous said...

Of course this reminds me of the classic children's story "Make Way for Ducklings" by Robert McClosky, set in Boston, 3000 miles from Washington. It also makes me reflect that we delight in the particular (the adorable baby ducks, the halting of traffic to allow them to cross the busy street), while condoning the destruction of duck (and other wildlife) habitat fto serve badly-planned development...

SabrinaW said...

I remember that book, Mary - great connection!

I agree that there is an inconsistency in the differing levels of awareness (though some might argue hard-wiring is involved). Perhaps there is a way to harness the "delight response" to raise awareness of less tangible issues... that is part of what comes to me when I think of "mindfulness".

Anonymous said...

When Officer Carrell slowed traffic for Ms Duck and her family, he was making a Go Slow Green act. Now if each of the 78,000,000 boomers and all other Americans would make a similar act to Go Slow Green as I recommend at www.vaboomer.com we would be making vital random acts of kindness to our Great Mother and all her little ducklings--we earthlings. Aren't these appropriate for our real Mother's Days?