Being Beloved
Mama rhinoceros gazed tenderly at her treasured child. Child rhinoceros became aware of her mama’s loving gaze. She examined her beloved mama’s face admiringly. Yearningly, she asked if one day her smaller nose-horn would grow as large, long and noble as her mama’s? Mama embraced her child, reassuring her of her loveliness, exactly the way she was, but added that indeed child’s nose-horn would continue to grow. Child rhino’s love for her mother created a newfound awareness in mama rhinoceros, of her own her birth-worth. Child rhinoceros basked in the warmth of the mama-love she received. Through these trusting and affectionate exchanges mama and child rhinoceros learned the value and the pleasure of giving and receiving unconditional love, thus deepening their pleasure in each other and their gratitude for each other.
Catastrophic Categorizations
A richly colourful, but overly competitive cat’s indaba assembled, comprising black, white, ginger, chocolate, blue-ish, beige-ish and grey cats and a myriad colour combinations thereof. They lounged about in their exclusively colour-coded groups, disdaining any cat communication outside of their self-imposed colour scheme barriers. They lazed and loafed on lush lawns, gazing skywards. Gradually they became aware of the gorgeous, drifting, varicoloured clouds overhead, encompassing every blend of cat-coloured coat. So it was that these cats learned of inclusiveness. They exchanged glances, examining each other with a new, charmed and respectful fascination, embracing the rich diversity of their cat colour schemes. They had learned through these majestic rich and blended clouds, that they too were all interconnected. This is how they found acceptance and joy in each other. Their indaba evolved into an enriched and glorious, colour-cohesion. Thereafter, there was lasting peace in this integrated cat community.
A Tall Small Story
A giraffe and a tortoise stood side by side. Of course, one was high in stature and one was low in stature. Looking each other up and down, they wondered if tallness or shortness was preferable. The wild grasses answered them, by waving lovingly at them both – grasses both high and low, swaying joyously together. Each of these many grasses was lovely and each was perfectly height-right and complete in themselves. That is how the giraffe and the tortoise learnt, through the grasses joyful, fully inclusive sway-dancing, to revel in total acceptance of themselves and of each other and others too. This is how they learnt the value of individuality and they learned also, to never over-prize size!
Embracing Diversity
Two rhinoceroses, one black, one white, posed at a lake edge. They admired themselves mirrored in the lake by moonlight and wondered which of them was lovelier. The deep, velvety night sky and the shimmering moon saw them standing side-by-side and they admired their beauty equally. And so it was that the two rhinoceroses learned to recognize their own and each other’s beauty. Different, but equal in their new-found wisdom, and grateful to the moon and the sky for revealing this truth to them, they were enabled also to fully appreciate the beauty of the glossy, dark sky and the brilliant, glowing moon, also reflected in their lake. Thus they were enriched and enlightened through this new-found awareness of nature’s boundless beauty and of their rightful place within it.