Circles of Care
A principle for scaling attention
Begin with your body—how does it feel?Does it need movement, a nap, or a meal?Or does it feel rested, nourished, and fitPrepared for the actions to which you’ll commit?
Move on to your mind—what is its state?Is it filled up with worries and wishes and hates?Or does it feel empty, steady, and clearReady to welcome whatever appears?
Now to your home—do you love where you live?Is it asking for something it needs you to give?Or does it feel cheerful, cozy, and cleanProviding a shelter for tending your dreams?
And then to the various people you love—Do you fully accept them as more than enough?Do you meet them with honesty, joy, and respect?Do you speak from the heart every time you connect?
And then to the work that you do every day—Do you come to it gladly, as if it were play?Do you put into practice your personal giftsCreating improvements and positive shifts?
And then to the help that you give and receive—Enlivening wishes and answering needsNurturing people and projects and placeSupporting the health of our planet in space.
And then to this curious world that we share—With its structures and systems and circles of careEach of us playing our own little partFinding our medicine, messages, art.
For what is this world but a series of livesReflecting each other with myriad eyes—Each with their lenses and visions and viewsEach with the feeling of needing to choose?
And what is this world, but a story we tell—A dream with no end, an alarm with no bell?To wake from the story and see it as suchTo swim in the dream, and savor the touch.
These Circles of Care—an invisible map—To help us awaken, embody, adaptTo the story of life that we choose to createAnd the world that emerges to which we relate.
From body, to mind, to home, and to loveTo work and to help—below as above—These are the scales of the story of youShaping the world that you call into view.
For you’re in the worldAnd the world is in you.You make it; it makes you.It’s ancient; it’s new.
So what feels aliveMost fertile, and true?What are you sensing,And what will you do?
Written and illustrated by Jonathan J. Harris
