stormbird

It was super windy at the lake yesterday.  I sat watching a bird dive beneath the waves.  She stayed below for so long it made me fear for her.  But she resurfaced, sometimes far away from where she vanished.  I wondered what she found below.  Was the bird that dived the same bird that emerged after that journey beneath?  I knew I was afraid of losing myself by diving below, by going deep.  That I would no longer be me.  Yet she had no fear.  She emerged renewed.  She appeared the same and yet it seemed she had changed.  Could she teach me to dive?  Do I want to learn?

Another, a seagull, hovered above.  Despite the constant driving wind he moved steadily forwards.  I marveled as he progressed despite the insistence of the elements that he retreat.  As I observed I began to see that he expended no effort, didn't fight it, he wasn't trying, he simply, patiently met it head on.  Not once did he flap his wings, but constant, subtle adjustments to his body, his shape, his attitude, somehow allowed him to ride the howling air slowly towards his goal.  It made no sense to my mind. Surely he had no choice in his direction.  He was so small, the world so big.  Then, watching him, I suddenly understood that only from my limited perspective did the world appear to be an impediment to his success, to his progress.  It appeared to me as though all the forces of nature were resisting him and yet he saw that not.  Effortlessly he harnessed the unstoppable power that appeared to be against him, gently accepting it, receiving it to glide ever higher, ever forward.  He had learned to join with the world, not resist it.  He didn't resist the wind and so it didn't resist him but lifted him instead.  He had learned to be one with it, not to fight and separate himself from it.  He BECAME it and so was free within it.  He had mastered it by mastering himself.

I thought "if he can do this, then so can I".  I can't change my body, I have no feathers but I can change my mind, give it wings.  I can allow my mind to adjust, not resist.  To shift, not to fight.  To encompass, not reject. To confront the windstorm of life head on with the surety that its seemingly uncontrollable power, correctly perceived, could be transformed from the obstacle to my happiness to become the very force that propelled me towards joy, towards peace.  I could confront my fear, confront myself.  Learn to dive deep into it.  He had no fear of falling or failing.  Only his single-minded desire for the destination.  With his eye on the prize everything he encountered was translated into a means to attain it, to become it.  Could he teach me to fly?  Do I want to learn?

nothing real is ever lost

Biked home late after the heavy rain today.  It was exciting, fun and strangely beautiful, orange fluffy clouds, jet black sky.  I don't remember when the sky had ever seemed so clear, maybe some forgotten camping trip when I was a kid.  I do remember the feeling though, something I haven't felt for a long time.  There was a moment when, looking up, I caught a glimpse of Orion moving through the trees and was filled with awe at the grandeur of it all.  For an instant I caught the perfect view and it all seemed so immense and yet so immediate, not apart.  As though it was me out there being looked at.  Still biking I kept trying to find a gap in the trees thinking I would stop and really look at it, take it in,   but it didn't come, then there were too many other lights glaring in my face and I knew the moment was gone.  But not lost.  

the illusion of separation

The idea that we are bodies separated by space and time is an illusion created by our minds. Even empirical physics tells us that all things in existence began as ONE THING, a singularity that then seemed to explode out into innumerable ever-changing forms constantly 'dying' and being reborn. 

So we're really all just the same stuff, just the SAME THING that only APPEARS separate when perceived at any particular moment in time. There is no death in reality, just a shift in apparent form. Like breaking waves and and spray in the ocean we appear at times to be separate drops, individualized particles separate from the whole but every drop inevitably falls back into the ocean it came from and is never really apart from it. It simply seems to be apart from it in that momentary snapshot of time. But if its return to the ocean is certain then is it ever really NOT the ocean? 

The idea of separation and loss is only possible from the viewpoint of a limited perception, a mind that understands 'reality' in terms of seconds, minutes, hours and years instead of eternity, in terms of inches, feet and miles instead of infinity. Our lives are a snapshot moment seemingly separated out from eternity. To judge our reality based on what it looks like for the nanosecond that we call our lives is like the fable of the men trying to identify an elephant each only touching one part of it. It's not possible. We try but we get it wrong.

Time and space are functions of the mind, made to reinforce the belief in separation, to create the illusion of many, to obscure the Truth of Oneness. This is why when you really begin to look at them closely time and space break down, don't make sense. This is why the rules of time and space CHANGE ACCORDING TO THE VIEWPOINT OF THE OBSERVER. Einstein showed us this, quantum physics is beginning to reveal it more clearly. 

We're drops of water that seemed suspended in time, time an illusion created by the thought that separation is possible. But we were never apart from our source, it was never lost. Truth can only be known when we identify with the eternal, the infinite, the unlimited, when we release our investment in the meaningless, fleeting fragments that seem to constitute our bodies, our identities, our 'reality' in time. It is then that we choose to see what we truly are. It is then that we realize we were always one and always at home. It is then that we find peace.