Consuelo, My Kindness Place
by Jawn McKinley
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Ever since SedonaKind began, no wait, since we started “charming,” I’ve been thinking about kindness in so many new and different ways. The responses to our charms, the light in the children’s eyes in our KIS sessions, our community’s support of us, all the different kindness stories we start our meetings with…it’s been a treasure trove of new thoughts and ideas for me.
This summer, however, I’ve been playing with the idea of how a place, or even an inanimate object, can inspire us to be kinder, can actually wrap us up in kindness. My husband and I are blessed to summer at an old stone farmhouse on a small lake in Ontario, Canada, that’s been in my family since the 1920’s. I’ve been coming here since I was a chubby little 6 year old, who couldn’t wait for school to be out and “off we’d go to the cottage.” Now, at 69, I still feel the same way. I can’t wait to get here. There is a calm, a sweetness about this place that gentles my soul, and lets me hear my better angels. This place just feels kind.
The odd thing is that several tragedies have taken place here. In the late 1800’s, two small children who lived in this house drowned in the lake. And after buying the farmhouse and building a wonderful stable to house their horses, my grandmother was kicked by her horse in the stall, and she died from her injuries. My grandfather never came back here, but my mother, only 16 years old when her mother died, kept coming. It became her special place. Perhaps she felt close to her mom here. Perhaps she felt the loving kindness, too.
So with such sadness and loss, why did my grandparents name this place Consuelo? It means contentment, comfort, solace. I’ve always felt that there are kind and loving spirits here, in spite of the tragedies. And as we’ve cared for the old place, put in so many beautiful perennial gardens and spent so much time just gazing at the crystal blue lake, I too feel the spirits of my parents, now long gone. The huge trees, the songs of the birds, the sound of the water, even the mad honking of the Canadian geese as they prepare to journey south for the winter…all of it just wraps me in a blanket that feels like kindness.
I know so many of you have special places in your lives that give you solace, strength, peace, and the inner quiet to contemplate ways of being kind. Sometimes it’s just a special chair in your house where you can curl up with a book, write a note to a friend, or just dream. Maybe it’s a cup of tea and a cookie and half an hour when all you do is just be in the present. Maybe it’s a painting on your wall where you can lose yourself for a few minutes during a hectic day. And of course, there is the magic of what we get to look at everyday living in Sedona. All of these places and things quiet us, revive us, and to my mind, allow the spirit of kindness to tiptoe in and give us a gentle nudge.
So as we gather again at our first autumn meeting and share some kindness stories from our summers, I’d like to suggest that not only our actions create kindness. Sometimes, we just have to look around at where we are, and take the kindness that the universe is offering with no strings attached.
This summer, however, I’ve been playing with the idea of how a place, or even an inanimate object, can inspire us to be kinder, can actually wrap us up in kindness. My husband and I are blessed to summer at an old stone farmhouse on a small lake in Ontario, Canada, that’s been in my family since the 1920’s. I’ve been coming here since I was a chubby little 6 year old, who couldn’t wait for school to be out and “off we’d go to the cottage.” Now, at 69, I still feel the same way. I can’t wait to get here. There is a calm, a sweetness about this place that gentles my soul, and lets me hear my better angels. This place just feels kind.
The odd thing is that several tragedies have taken place here. In the late 1800’s, two small children who lived in this house drowned in the lake. And after buying the farmhouse and building a wonderful stable to house their horses, my grandmother was kicked by her horse in the stall, and she died from her injuries. My grandfather never came back here, but my mother, only 16 years old when her mother died, kept coming. It became her special place. Perhaps she felt close to her mom here. Perhaps she felt the loving kindness, too.
So with such sadness and loss, why did my grandparents name this place Consuelo? It means contentment, comfort, solace. I’ve always felt that there are kind and loving spirits here, in spite of the tragedies. And as we’ve cared for the old place, put in so many beautiful perennial gardens and spent so much time just gazing at the crystal blue lake, I too feel the spirits of my parents, now long gone. The huge trees, the songs of the birds, the sound of the water, even the mad honking of the Canadian geese as they prepare to journey south for the winter…all of it just wraps me in a blanket that feels like kindness.
I know so many of you have special places in your lives that give you solace, strength, peace, and the inner quiet to contemplate ways of being kind. Sometimes it’s just a special chair in your house where you can curl up with a book, write a note to a friend, or just dream. Maybe it’s a cup of tea and a cookie and half an hour when all you do is just be in the present. Maybe it’s a painting on your wall where you can lose yourself for a few minutes during a hectic day. And of course, there is the magic of what we get to look at everyday living in Sedona. All of these places and things quiet us, revive us, and to my mind, allow the spirit of kindness to tiptoe in and give us a gentle nudge.
So as we gather again at our first autumn meeting and share some kindness stories from our summers, I’d like to suggest that not only our actions create kindness. Sometimes, we just have to look around at where we are, and take the kindness that the universe is offering with no strings attached.