happened to come across a chameleon (in
the picture). This led me to thinking (not all
chameleons have the ability to change color)
just as this type of chameleon can blend in,
so do we, to be able to thrive in another land.
I am not speaking of the obvious, as a white
person like me will never really be able to blend
in Africa all that well. It is simply because of the
all so apparent differences.
It is more the the blending of the mind that I refer to.
It is such a different life here than where I came
from ... USA.
I am really referring to blending in to the way things
are done and how life is lived in a whole new
environment.
An interesting aspect of the chameleon is that each
eye works independent of the other. So one can
be looking in one direction as the other looks in
the other.
There is a similarity with someone who comes from
a different world. Even though our eyes can't work
like the chameleon's, we are looking in two directions
at the same time. With the ideas and thoughts from
the prior life ingrained into the mind, it is the necessity
to look to the now, at the life in front of our faces.
With this, there are many instances in which we feel
dumb until we acquire the experience and eventually
gain the knowledge to blend in.
This takes a lot of mindfulness and control of the ego.
Things like garden expansions that would take a day,
takes almost a month, with luck. Things like, having
opportunities to introduce educational tools to the
village being derailed by a broken generator which
no one knows when it will be repaired. It is going
on 6 weeks and looks like it is going to continue
counting.
In the prior life this is all unacceptable things that are
resolved either virtually immediately or there is a big
stink until it is all right again. If one tries to raise the
roof here, well, it just don't work and one then stands
out. Probably not in a good way.
So the blending also come in by learning to accept that
things are done a different way. It is essential to have
faith that it will all end correctly eventually. It is also
a necessity to fight the inner fight so as not to have the
notion of jumping off a bridge.
Despite it's propensity to deliver stress to the 'outsider',
it is a chance to learn new ways and lighten up on the
old ones. It can bring a sense of freedom from one's
past norms if they were a hindrance to a feeling of peace.
But it doesn't all come without a price. It takes a huge
effort to make it all natural.
That is one thing that the chameleons have, that
ability to blend in automatically.
For us it is the goal.
When it does come after time, it is such a sense of
accomplishment. It really is totally incredibly neat to be
sitting around with people from a totally other world
and it feeling all so natural.
This may all sound a little out there but that is the lesson
of the chameleon as I have seen it.
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