12:02 AM Saturday
… downstairs at midnight, my unaided nearsightedness spots a glow in the impossibly close foreground outside the window; the bay is illuminated – a glistening amoeba of quicksilver among the pitch-black void …
6:40 AM the following Wednesday
… three, then five, finally six river otters swim toward me at dawn as i stand on the pier meditating on the rich blessing of another day of life: rolling, burnished-ebony saltwater; eleven crows lined up wing to wing on the railing; a faint-pink tinge to the ghost of the volcano; salmon threads scattered across the sky; east and west mountain ranges ensconce me, or offer something to aspire to; the cool air reminding of an approaching equinox; but one, fat, beige-chinned, dripping wet otter climbs onto the dock below me and – all the while staring up at me – scratches, primps, wiggles and makes the oddest grunt-squeak, before slipping back down into his wet world …
7:53 AM the same Wednesday
… the saltwater tears during a client session leave saline imprints of memory and meaning, tracks leading back to the core of eternity …
9:10 AM the same Wednesday
… the new, soft-spoken yoga teacher sweetly coos the poses, encouraging us always to move into an awareness of the ecotone of breath-embodied; she whispers, “the wave of your breath” and suddenly! i carry an ocean in my belly and hear the rushing roar of the other yogis’ inner oceans; and all that exists is wavebreath/breathwave in huge roiling floods of connection with Pacific.Atlantic.Indian.Southern.Arctic …
And i notice this: i only paid thin attention to the midnight waterglow. But when three more oceanic reminders came in quick succession midweek, i had to refocus, to reclaim deep, abiding attention. i innately felt that connection of my own body, others’ human bodies, and swimming bodies with the bodies of all the saltwater on Earth. The insight for me is: expansion, continually journeying wider, a courageous stepping out to the edge. Only a planet of oceans can deliver a message like that. But it does so in tiny packages. We cannot hold the entire thing at once, so we are given smaller moments.
i wonder, what in nature is offering you the opportunity to expand again into your rightful, interconnected place on the planet?
The earth in its myriad, powerful, extravagant beauty is presenting itself to us over and over; it’s trying to get our attention. And it is a gift for the claiming if only we thread the small moments together, weave the repeated message of images into the insight that will guide us, or the balm that will soothe our weary body.
(Orig. posted in summer 2016.)
