The Quiet Tide of True Connection …

Evening is a “quiet time”.
Most people have settled slowly into the refuge of the night: reading, knitting, digesting, TV, dreams, sex, sleep.

The sun and moon hold the earth in their cradle and light slowly fades on the horizon of time. Other countries light up. Other people awake. Clusters and groups and families all seek their fame and fortune. Accomplishment. Survival. Enjoyment. Giving and Taking. Buying and Selling. The Market. The Temple. A bath in the Holy River.

significant 'other'

There are “them” out there.  This we know.  A wild series of “them”.  Legions of “them”.  Unidentified scores and throngs of “them”.  And who are they?  They are a lot like you.  And me.  They are humans – going through the same routines, same dances, same prayers and celebrations as you and me.

Perception.  We isolate ourselves and hide in the small caves allotted by our fears, our distrust, our acquired kingdoms, our well-financed sense of separation.  These humans we see, we perceive, we visualize… are not only a lot like us, they are intricately connected to us.

This is where the “us and them” gimmick falls apart.  We have two “monarchs” of perception that fight for the throne inside of us – our hearts and our minds.  They mind is allied with ‘ego’, and perceives its kingdom as “owned”, separate, justified.  The mind-ego is the King of Attachment and despite the ludicrousness of the whole affair – after all, we’re not taking this ‘stuff’ with us when we go – the mind views itself and it’s Kingdom as eternal, immortal and untouchable.

Familiar tune?

The Genius of Immortality

And then – the Heart.  The heart does not “fight” for the throne, the heart ascends to the throne when the Mind/ego has finally understood its frailty, its stupidity and its ignorance and has surrendered its position because it can’t hold the house of Mortality together any more.  The Heart is the Silent Partner that awaits in all of us – the center of sweetness.  The innocent part of us that understands its true role as Speck of Dust in the hands of the Immortal.  Out of our control.  Gratitude.  Oneness.  Bliss.

The Heart also understands this foundation-point of “connection” between sentient beings.  We humans – if we look at one another with the eyes of the heart – can immediately recognize our union and unity with all mankind.  We are made of the same ‘stuff’.  The Divine is visible – shining! – in each and every one of us.  This is truly what unites us in its magnificence, its compassion, it’s deep love and understanding.  And we each claim and own this light of the divine in our deepest hearts.

The Throne of Understanding.

It’s there.

It never left.  It is us who left.  And it is us who must find our way back.

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The Agreement of Connection

Something about Nature, and the act of Being Out In Nature.   There’s a Cosmic Oxide produced by Running Water, Falling Leaves and Shooting Stars.    This replenishes  lost juices in your solar cortex.

There’s the smell of rotting leaves mixed with October Mist, punctuated by cold, gurgling streams, offset by the distinct possibility of Bears and Cougars in the territory.  There’s the raucous cawing of crows, an occasional eagle soaring high, high, high in Penthouse Douglas Fir Apartment-Land.  There’s egrets with no regrets, herons with no errands – silently sitting and waiting as gaunt lifeless silhouettes, on placid sparkling canals.

They invite you into their own mystique: soaring, calling, waiting, floating, swimming in the invigorating dance of their own True Little Bird-Souls.  Betraying the divine, detached, perfect beauty of their own unique program – performed flawlessly on this majestic stage of Nature’s mantle.

Something about Nature and the Art of Feeling It, Seeing It, Hearing It … as it really is.   There’s something about being inwardly at rest, far from the incessant internal dialogues we’re plagued with – in a place where the Glorious Cool Fingers of Fall can enter us, fondle our 3rd Chakras, spin our eyes counter-clockwise, send our Kundalini spiraling up the Central Pole of Sensory convergence.

We come to Nature – but Nature also comes to us.  So many times, I’ve sat and waited in silence – only to have been approached by insects, cats, ducks, raccoons, moths, butterflies, zebras … they come calling.  They come looking for “connection”.  They come inquiring about the Soul of the Visitor: they say, “how are your Insides feeling today, long-lost & weary friend …?”  They say “who are you?”, without noticing your face,  your wallet, your underarm odor or any of your failures in the world of finance or relationship.  They come for connection, and connection only.

The silent unspoken agreement that we all enter into, upon re-acquainting ourselves with Nature, is this Agreement of Connection.  We notice it, we feel it.  Our skin-of-skins breathes it.  Our heart-of-hearts knows it.  The Deep Silence, the Dreamer, the Lost Soul within us, finds home once again … settles into Knowing the Beauty of the Known, rather than struggling with puzzles and eating the fibrous, uncooked recipes of doubt & desire.

We settle in to the reassuring meditation of What Is, rather than the unsettling mysticism of “what was”, “what might be” or the rancid smells of all the unattended pots we’ve left on back-burners through our myriad lifetimes.

Something about Nature, the act of plunging into cool water, the Sacred Art of  Being Alive.  The beautiful symphonies that broadcast to us on a frequency only we know.  The whispers of Wind in Tall trees that we inhabit, with the Eagles.  With the Silence, the Mystery, the Dancing Clouds.

And that one Agreement we made, before the World of Words became Flesh ….

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