Interlude of Images: 'Little Free' – Such is the Mutuality of Becoming
Dear Friends and Family,
It’s been a little while since our last Interlude of Images. Today’s Interlude does not stray from our recent reflections on “In the beginning is relation.”1 If anything, I hope it brings us closer to relation as the bedrock of being.
On a recent walk, I came upon a little free library. What was once a treat to stumble upon and peek inside now became the stuff of wonder. Here was lived meaning of freely giving and receiving, receiving and giving, absent the immediate presence of the Other.
To bring this lived meaning a little closer, let’s say I happen upon a little free library that you recently offered a short pile of old books. You and I may never encounter one another, but we change all the same at the threshold of this little free library—by the fact of our inter-change. Together, we become.
In today’s gallery of intimacy with ‘little free’, you’ll see antique books, words brought to the page long enough ago that to read those words today is to transmute the veil between living and dying. And between that long-ago writer and you and me is a hidden someone who last touched those pages before opening the ‘little free’ door, all of us participating in inter-change. You’ll see bed sheets—can there be anything more intimate?—damask-stitched and folded, as if just pulled from the linen closet and offered to a houseguest. My phone I pulled from my pocket upon a chance encounter with a little food pantry and reflected in the glass door of the pantry stretches to the persons giving and receiving the can of soup and across geographic horizons between you and me. Many someones are out there creating little free art. They’re shuffling these little free pieces off to little free galleries, curating ever-unfolding expressiveness of being, shaping our becoming by even the slightest feeling evoked in our encounters with these pieces. Packets of seeds saved from generations of culinary plants, air-dried, and carried across time are shared faith in our participation in the grandeur of life. The possibilities of ‘little free’ are endless . . . and free.
Layers and layers of being can be seen in these images. I hope you enjoy.
Ever in gratitude and with love,
Renée
PS: Your response to last week’s CURAlive story and announcement of Batch #6 has been an unanticipated joy. Thank you.
To you who placed a preorder for serum, thank you again. To you who would like to preorder, please email me (reneeeliphd@gmail.com) for more information and to order. Preorder discounts apply until March 15: Free shipping + 15% off.
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Martin Buber, I and Thou
Thank you for this lovely reflection of unseen energetic exchanges that elevate our sense of being, many exchanges that we often take for granted far too easily. I recall reading an idea that makes a similar illustration (it may have been Deepak Chopra) that is much less pleasant but really hit home with me - if I am walking down the sidewalk and catch a whiff of cigarette smoke, and notice the person walking ahead of me holding a cigarette, I may have just inhaled the atoms and energy that was, only moments ago, in their lungs. Everything is an energetic exchange, I hold it in wonder.
Beautiful reflection on one being touching another being and in some way -large or small- both are touched.