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| Just outside the local library yesterday afternoon: I looked up, and noticed. |
Journal entry for the morning of 3 February 2012: It was a starry, clear, crisp, thirties-something-Fahrenheit night as I went to bed. Before going inside yesterday evening I raised my face up to the sky, watching for a shooting star – that thing upon which we make wishes. I recalled other meteors I have seen in my life, perhaps as a way of summoning a shooting star in last night’s sky. Even though I was looking up at the sky, I was not seeing it. I was too busy dreaming of those other nights with shooting stars, a spectacular blue-streaked one that painted the predawn darkness a few months ago, and wondering if I would see a meteor last night. I kept looking up at the tiny lights in the darkness until something shifted within me: as I dropped my thoughts, hopes for a shooting star, and naming of those few constellations I can recognize, I became aware of actually seeing what was up there. The glance at Orion became a long stare at the stars that make his “belt”. Other stars I could not name, a passing satellite, a low flying airplane …these came and went as my eyes (or heart?) began to adjust to the timelessness of the moment. What began to emerge as I opened myself to seeing was a profound sense of connection and rootedness; the natural world began to mirror me! While I’d been hoping for a shooting star to grace the night, I realized that the night was already gracious in its bounty.
Reflection: The movement from looking to seeing is not really about attitude adjustment: “cup half empty” or “cup half full”; it is beyond these trite clichés. Instead, it is about presence. It is about showing up to what is really there. It is the difference between looking at “the beach” (recounting later: “sky, water, rocks, sand”), and actually noticing the subtle colors on the horizon as the sun moves lower during my low tide hike. The ability to see has its roots in the present; in being present; in full-on, engaged presence. It is the shift from me looking at the night sky to becoming part of that night sky. When the natural world and I mirror each other, those stars last night finding all the points of light within me (e.g. - things for which I’m grateful or that add joy to my life, hard lessons that have softened my heart…), then I know I am truly alive; living as a human being with frailties and flourishings; living as a “spiritual being having a human experience.”
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| "The beach (sky, water, rocks, sand)" becomes these colors on the horizon |
