Nature is wise. I walk amidst her splendor feeling isolated and apart, a separated "other" tangled in thought and perception, tangled in "me". Then I look out at the breathtaking brilliance that I am a part of. Flowers litter the ground, a wind blows and the trees sway in response, a bird calls and mosquitos lurch. For a moment there is no "other". The wind is breathing this breath, the ground supporting this step, life is arising in all its multiplicity and returning in singularity...a single breath, that is All. And I am home.
When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment. It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float. It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within. It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains. Eyes closed. Eyes opened. A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being. It takes courage.
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