As I listened to the news on the radio this morning, I couldn't help but think about how many of the items were related to man's tendency to claim things as "mine". Individual men, men in leadership positions, governments, corporations, countries. Our entire economic system is based on personal ownership, which can lead to almost constant conflict. I'm reaching the point where I can dimly hear, under the surface of a news report, a childish spat in the schoolyard: "It's mine." "No, it's not, it's mine." "No, it's mine"...
And it's not completely and exclusively men. We women try to claim ownership of everything from material possessions to our own bodies, only to this day, it's not a given that we will be successful. We only have a short history in a limited number of countries of having rights to any kind of ownership or independent action or thought, much less successful careers, respect, and opportunities for leadership. My personal inability to function in an ownership construct is pretty spectacular, but I suppose you could say my priority was always to "own" myself. If it took 66 years and resulted in owning precious little else, I'm strangely OK with that.
The schoolyard spats seem even more surreal when placed in the context of classic photographs of earth from outer space, where all our artificial lines and boundaries are nonexistent. These lines are completely imaginary, when you come right down to it. And in the end, even Mother Earth's "ownership" of this planet (and all through the galaxy and beyond) isn't what we humans consider ownership. It is simply never-ending love energy filling up every spot it can. It is ownership not ultimately "about" owning or possession but about loving with no boundaries. It is not about pulling things in and holding onto them, as much as beautiful energy moving out from inside us, to the world. Theoretically, at some point in the future, no one will own anything -- so everyone will own everything. It sounds chaotic, but when genuine love is the catalyst, it won't be.
