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“Who what am I? My answer: I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each ‘I’, every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow the world.”

― Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

(I've never read any Rushdie, but just came across this quote.  Ironically I googled him afterwards to find out a bit more about who he is.  Heh.)

When I was 18, I went with my parents to visit my sister in Zambia.  She lived there for several years while conducting doctoral research on a Fulbright fellowship.  We drove throughout the country connecting with her friends & watching her field work.  One night we were driving through a wildlife refuge.  It looked like a wide open savanna with gazelles in the distance & a fiery setting sun.  The jeep died.  Again.  There was little technology in the country.  What existed people had learned to repair & reuse for decades.  My sister was suddenly an efficient mechanic.  She identified that the battery somehow rusted out of place.  We were all put to work crushing the coke cans we'd been drinking so we could use them & a wire hanger to wedge the battery back into place.  Someone looked up.  There was a lion in the distance eyeing the gazelles.  We were between the two.

Never before in my life had I felt so vulnerable, nor so small.  There was no ignoring what a tiny role I play individually in the larger project of life.  It reminded me of a meditation I'd practiced when 16.  I'd envision the universe as a large web.  I'd gradually begin noting it enveloping me with thread.  I was an intrinsic piece, but no more or less valuable than any other.

"I am large, I contain multitudes."

-Walt Whitman

Or multitudes contain me.  Considering this tantric web of life can breathe a sense of purpose & humility.  Today, on August 8th, 2012, it reminds me honor the whole.