Heart-felt actions

I’m a little afraid to jinx it, but last week was my best chemo week in recent memory (recent memory being years). Though I still stayed in bed for three days, I didn’t throw up at all (TMI?) and wasn’t even nauseous.

The weekend before chemo, I saw John of God in Toronto. Believe what you want, but I personally know that the entities had a hand in my physical state this week. I have done all kinds of mind-body work to manage the nausea but never attained a state like this. On top of all that, when I went to see my acupuncturist and he took my pulses, he noted that, if I had just walked in as a new patient off the street, he would question why I was even there. Things were that good.

John of God in Toronto felt different than John of God in Brazil. However, I got to meet up with some friends from Brazil, which felt both expansive and grounding.

We also ran into some Cambridge friends at dinner in the hotel restaurant. Our Cambridge friends included a nine-year-old boy I will call T and his parents. T heard that LeBron James of the Miami Heat (basketball team) was staying in the hotel, and he exuded excitement to just to be in the same space as this sports legend.

My friend, Abi, and I sat together at dinner and, at one point, we noticed the entire Cambridge family suddenly leave their table and the restaurant, while their belongings remained on their chairs.

When they returned, T was visibly thrilled: He found LeBron James lounging in the lobby! Though LeBron James was initially hesitant to engage with the little boy, T’s cuteness factor won out, and T got a picture of himself with LeBron and TWO autographs: one for himself, and one for the waiter.

His enthusiasm infected us and the waiter, who had a decidedly different tone waiting on T than when he waited on, say, our table. This little boy, in his excitement, thought not just of himself but also of someone else who would be happy to share in the experience. The ripple effect of a passionate, positive act continued from there.

I was also struck by the positive ripple effects of one passion-driven performance in this TED talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_whitacre_a_virtual_choir_2_000_voices_strong.html

In summary: Eric Whitacre is a professional classical composer and conductor. As a gift for him, one of his fans sang a piece he wrote, and she posted it on YouTube. She didn’t know him, and she was nervous doing this, but her actions seemed to be driven by a passion for his work.

Her performance wasn’t earth-shattering. It wasn’t a big wow. Eric Whitacre was, however, touched by it, and it gave him an idea for a larger virtual choir, which he discusses in the TED talk.

I continue to be struck by the fact that the ripple effect of this one heart-driven idea, earnestly implemented by one young woman, fueled the idea for an exciting project that connected thousands of people from around the world and helped them become part of something bigger than themselves..

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Have a beautiful, holy week, whatever your beliefs, and know in your soul that your heart-felt actions create ripples that grow larger and impact countless others.

Much love,
Marie