On a hike this morning, my heart was aching, longing, crying, to experience God and I had the thought full of feeling, "I am so tired of being "me"". The ludicrousness of this statement puzzled me leading to the next question. "Who is tired of being "me"?" Awareness just opened and for a moment it was clear that angelina/me doesn't have a thing to do with it...doesn't need to get enlightened or become better, more spiritual or anything. She doesn't need to save anything or anyone. In fact it was like seeing angelina as a pin point in the expanse of what I am. It really is just a case of mistaken identity isn't it? That which I am...truth...whatever feeble word I use to describe it...doesn't need "my" help. Of course "me" wanted to hold onto the "experience" and it was gone. In its wake it was abundantly clear that "me" "angelina" isn't going to "wake up" or get enlightened. It is a waking "from" but the wakefulness/truth/consciousness is always present. Always. It doesn't matter what angelina is doing. It is here, now, even if I can't feel it.
Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...
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Richard Sylvester