Harmony Travels with Compassion

Harmony Travels with Compassion

This angel was ready just in time for election day!  How fitting!  I can't count how many times I have said it.  For the longest time it was a joke at the office.  One thing that Rodney King and I have in common, is that I am always wondering "Why can't we all just get along?"  I mean it seems simple enough, I am nice to you, and you are nice to me.  It is something we were taught as children, but seem to forget as we get older.  Play nice, share, take turns...  all the common courtesies that we seem to forget when we get in our cars, and drive to the local Target or Walmart.  "Get the hell out of my way!" "Move your cart bimbo!"  "Do I look like I have all day?" It is something that we loose touch with when we log on to facebook, and someone has a different political view, religious outlook, or personal life style.  We are so self focused that we think we know how other people should live, love, and vote.  We think that because we care about something, then everyone else should, and if they don't, well, they must just be going to hell in a hand basket!  This is where we go wrong.  People are not going to change their point of view just because we tell them they are wrong and we are right.  They are NOT just going to get along.  Yet, that is what we all want...  to get along... I don't know of anyone that WANTS to disagree, or wants to fight.  Yet, we do.   How can we achieve this harmony that we all so desperately want?  That is why this sweet angel has came!  She came to let us know that to achieve harmony, we must have compassion.  We may not agree with the person next door, or they may just plain be rude or unnerving.  This is where we need to look at this person, and see ourselves in this person.  See how we are like this person, and how this person is like us.  We need to remember a time, when perhaps we may have behaved as this person does, or when we would think like this person does.  Envision a situation that may cause us to think like this person thinks, or act like this person acts.  We must have compassion.  


Wikipedia defines compassion as a virtue in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy (for the suffering of others) are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism - foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and person-hood.  If only, we would take a moment to see how we are connected before we jumped to conclusions we might just be able to achieve harmony, if only for a little while.  


This angel has peacock feathers, most people think of peacocks as representing pride and virtue, however In Hinduism the Peacock is associated with Lakshmi who is a deity representing benevolence, patience, kindness, compassion and good luck.  It is an emblem of love, compassion, and kind-heartedness.  The goldfish represents many things in the Chinese culture.  It represents, wealth, and it also represents the harmony of family.  In this painting it specifically represents the harmony of our global family.  This angel is called Compassion, and she travels with her pet goldfish Harmony, in order to show us that getting along is possible, if we just have a heart.