You Are a Process

You are not an object

This lemon ripening at Evergreen is a process, not an object. Everything - including you - is a process.

Have you ever thought of yourself as a process, rather than an object?

Living at Evergreen makes me aware of the seasons. The twenty-acre property is situated in wetlands of the south coast of Western Australia, and nature plays under, over, and across it like a symphony throughout the year.

The year is a process. Change is happening all the time.

Now it’s the middle of spring. The three-acre lake that formed over winter lies still; its surface is covered with reed seeds that have been fluttering past the window like snow whenever the wind blows. The seeds also get caught on tree stalks, fall like confetti on the washing pegged on the line, cling to the ripening mulberries, and catch in my hair as I walk in the garden.

A pair of swans tend their seven cygnets. They grow daily as they rest on the grass by the lake’s edge and are now the size of geese.

Self-seeded poppies, hollyhocks, tomato plants and butter lettuce are popping up all over the garden. Onion and carrot seedlings raise shoots in the warmth. Deep purple native hibiscus flowers track the sun’s path across the sky. Roses sprout dark reddish leaves after their hard prune.

Snails and slugs chomp. Bees hover and sip. Swallows nest in the eaves. Their rustling and twittering wake me in the morning. Throughout the day kingfishers call, sharp and insistent, between quick dives into the water to grab lunch.

The moon is waxing, and the earth’s tilt makes the sun’s rays fall further south.

Nothing stays the same. Everything around me is a process.

And so am I.

Deepak Chopra Quote

A Deepak Chopra quote:

A human being is a process, not an object.

From conception through to an inevitable dusty dissolution, a human being is a physical process. Like the seasons, and like a symphony, we have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

We think we’re as solid and substantial as a brick wall. But most of the human body is made up of empty space. We’re basically walking bags of nothing much at all.

The website Interesting Engineering states:

Every human on planet Earth is made up of millions and millions of atoms which all are 99% empty space. If you were to remove all of the empty space contained in every atom in every person on planet Earth and compress us all together, then the overall volume of our particles would be smaller than a sugar cube!

We’re swirling masses of emptiness held together by skin only millimetres thick, but we strut around as if we’re the answer to everyone’s prayer.

When we think of ourselves as essentially an empty bag of processes instead of an imposing object, it makes us humble, less opinionated, and more careful.

We realise we don’t know everything and that what we think or believe now, may change tomorrow, or in the next minute. Our thoughts aren't as solid and important as we thought they were. Our emotions are like the wind - they come and go.

We see we are like a lemon on a tree: unfolding, becoming, dropping, dissolving.

We see ourselves as a part of nature.

We acknowledge our kinship with spiders, rocks, tree bark, and pond life.

You Are a Process

Change your perception. See yourself as a process, not an object.

When you do this, your life expresses the beauty and richness of the seasons and of symphonies.

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Thank you!

With love, Marlane