The Wow Factor

I walk down the streets of the city and an old-fashioned garage, wooden doors, opening vertically, tiny and compact, catches my eye. I stop walking and stand there watching as a woman pulls her modern car into the garage, moving carefully and slowly.

I spontaneously say “wow” out loud.

The sky, the trees, the newly sprung flowers, the man walking straight into me, not aware of where he is walking, the rubble of the school being torn down, the wind pushing my hair off my forehead . . . wow!

I am in direct contact with it all.

I am not experiencing fear or anxiety; I am not pushing back at anything, and I don’t really have an opinion or judgment of which of these things I like, which of these things I don’t care for, or how something might be better if it were different or is better than something else.

And when I do have an opinion or a tinge of discomfort, it is seen as impartially as anything else.

I am aware of moment after moment of living all life directly . . . no barrier . . .

And being happy. I am content for no reason at all, deeply and solidly content, peacefully so, simply reflecting my natural state of being.

After decades of seeking to make conscious what was deeply known . . . and being off-again, on-again lost in the confusion and limitations of the mind.

A Vessel of Grace

We are all designed as beautiful, intricately carved, and delicate crystal vessels. And yet, when God comes to fill us with light, most of us will break from the intensity and heat—our vessels will not be able to hold.

I have been enamored with this cabalistic legend of the shattered crystal vessel for longer than I had any idea what it meant, for my life or in general. For most of my life I was fervently aware of having given my word that I would not break from the intensity of reality (whatever that meant to me at the time).

It is in retrospect, both from prolonged and deep reflection, and from the years and years of studying our human psychology, that I have come to an appreciation for how and why we suffer so and how the truth of our being is hidden in plain sight—what does not and cannot break!

The surrender I have intuited for a very long time—experiencing and accepting the totality of my experience and awareness. The letting go of what I perceive as a necessary protection—the sinking into something far greater and boundless. The nature of being in a mind, a brain that tells me I am unprotected and separate. The fears of that strike, that blow, that will hurt. The little-by-little of, with faith and trust, setting aside the mind’s insistence that it is necessary to be angry, opposed to, protected in a thousand small and large ways.

The madness being the nature of us humans living inside a mind that tells us we are separate and therefore unsafe and alone, and acting as if that is true, experiencing slings and arrows which are further convincing us of our illusion.

Madness being the status quo—the way it is for all of us. Coming out of madness? Open to what is true, what is real—from the smallest perceptions to the ultimate reality of oneness.

A couple of days later I awoke feeling very disoriented and spacey—having no firm location of the “me” I am accustomed to. Since it was Tuesday I drove an hour away for supervision—the drive being an unusually beautiful one for highway driving. The highway cuts through green hills, forests of trees, and along bodies of water. There were two realities: one I was aware of being focused on driving; I watched the road, other cars and my maneuvering of my car, and in another reality, I was aware of the full sensation of moving, moving, and there being no time. Only sensation. At one moment, I looked over at the hills and felt the sensation of the wet, moist, dark, rich earth. I was the earth. Even the taste. . . This was a much bigger reality/experience than I have words to describe.

And in this midst . . . last night “I” watched myself sleep and dream. A very curious experience—what is watching? What is not asleep?

I am thinking about faith and trust these days. I appear to be guided, there is something inside always present and alive—sometimes loud and sometimes so quiet. And now this presence is constant—even within the midst of fear and doubt—it seems to be lying immediately underneath. When a friend asks me if awakening is worth it—with one deep breath I am in the ocean of love and joy—right there for the tasting and touching.

Trading Places

It began, throughout childhood and adulthood, with the whisper of the eternal and the prominence of the “little me” . . .

Several years ago, likely around the time of my first encounter with breast cancer and facing the possibility of dying . . .

Where the whisper of the eternal turned up the volume and “the little me” complained.

Where the whisper turned up the volume, stayed around longer and the crusty build-up of protections and conditioning began to be dislodged in all my organs.

And now the vastness took over and “the little me” is a whisper.

Oneness is Not Merging

I have had a long-held misconception that oneness would resemble what I understood merging into would be. Like I would “become” the other and experience life as they do . . . looking through another’s eyes with the unconscious assumption of separation still prevailing; you are over there, I am here but I empathize with you—leading to a profound misconception of what it might mean to be unified. Empathy is real. It is a powerful connecter, allowing us to see each other, feel each other, and understand each other and allowing us to be seen. It can and does heal deep wounds. In its presence we humans feel safe.

The deeper and fuller truth though, the profundity of unity, of oneness is the visceral knowing of everything being awareness, vibrating emptiness—everything, at its essence is that and so all is one, all is connected with no beginning, no end, and simply is not separate—cannot be separate. There is no outside, there is no inside. There is no substantial, solid you, no substantial, solid me. “We” are temporary forms; we are temporary movement, rising out of emptiness, out of an infinite one—

Look deeply enough and you will find our common source—

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