It
is about perspective. It is about seeing differently. And, finally, it is about Soul.
We re-member that we are seamless with that which we think of as outside of us.
This
has been the mantra for the week: giving to others, receiving their gifts back;
being the beneficiary of the Inheritance of Life. I am reminded that offering is receiving. In our dualistic thinking
it is hard to come to this edgelessness. But the heart, the soul, Spirit, gods
or God…whatever one has named That Which Holds All…is able to repair us one to
another, human to “nonhuman,” strangers to acquaintances to soulmate sisters,
coyotes to birds, fish to llamas. We look, constantly, for that which
distinguishes us as unique, different. Separate. The sense I’m getting over and
over (intuition) is that I will not be able, for a hundred lifetimes, to find
words, symbols, even vague pointers toward, a way of addressing this
interconnection. It is a felt thing. As incredible the powers of our human
brain, the glory of inseparability with All That Is cannot be taken in and
worked through - chewed on and put back out by the brain - without further
rupturing, further distancing.
I
am one with the autumn landscape. I am one with the groups and people and
animals I’ve met this week. I need not pull the fallen twigs out of my hair,
for they signal my interconnection with the natural world that I cannot help
but think of as “out there.” The truth is that in my guts I know I am one with
all that is. My mind tries to tease me into believing, to tantalize and dance
with me toward the precipice edge, so that I am converted to the fallacious
belief that I am separate, unique, different. Sure, we each have a contribution
to make, that nobody else can make for us or in quite the same way that we can.
But this does not preclude the sheer fact that we are, each one of us, part of
the Whole.
I
walked along an easy dirt path feeling the heat of the day, even as the light
danced through the boughs of fragrant pines. Distancing myself from the conversation
of others, I found my own stride, my pace through the moment of autumn in a
ponderosa-oak forest. A few redding leaves dazzled my heart. Some little
cheerful bird whose dance in and out of shadows prevented a good look, decided
to pause on a limb. I stopped moving too. High overhead his larger cousin
circled and wheeled in the sky, searching for food below, I suspect. And in
that instant, I was caught in the pure presence of just being. I was held in the gaze of that small winged guy on the branch
and perhaps by the acute eyes of the flying one overhead. I was held within
wings and feathers, within the folds of a warm breeze, within the embrace of
the sunlight, under the protection of the forest giants.
It
is outside of me that I find the mirror into which I look to find myself. And the
outside looks to my insides and sees who I am. It goes both ways. As I look at
others, I feel their inside places and I know them by those inner landscapes more
than by how they present their outsides. People, trees, birds, pine needles. It
is challenging to convey the idea of a mirror because it seems to separate the
inseparable: in from out, image from actual.
But allowing ourselves to simply feel the unity is our way forward.
All blog images created and/or photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
