I have a great friend. Who is literally life, conscious of itself, in the most mineral and welcoming way. This embodying of life has an effect on others. They are drawn to my friend in ways they are unable to shape into words or even wordless notions. Yet drawn they are. Like rain to river. River to sea. Sea to its own wild heart. Recently this friend told me of a rare and valued experience. One of awakening to sensing far beyond the usual and knowing existence without edges.
However, there remained some small imperfection in this perfect knowledge. The particular experience was not one of the half-expected clouds and choirs and light but one of unexpected earth and elements and darkness.
My friend shared this with me. A tender and generous gift. An experience and a wondering. Their sincere entering into the moment with no expectations was found to be colonised with a hidden narrative from elsewhere. Could this be what it seemed if it didn’t match other people’s telling? In their self-presence my friend was able to see this as it was and found it amusing. Part of their greatness.
Harlow-Carr-Tulip – Gavin-Birchall
I pondered at the time and we shared words and I have pondered some more since. We all, no matter our greatness, and perhaps because of our greatness, wonder about our experiences and may doubt what we know our sensations to be. Because they don’t match our imagining of them. We can, in our innocence, deny what we live and embrace what we imagine. Distancing ourselves from our lives as they are. Yet all of the living share one experience. There is no better and no worse way of knowing that experience. Although we may find ourselves with reason upon reason to believe there is.
There are as many ways of experiencing life as there are expressions of it. Each is coherently and entirely valid within itself and its universal role. I don’t mean that figuratively or metaphorically. Literally that expression’s role in the universe. We are what the universe is up to wherever we are. This friend I have, who I see as great, is as close to intentionally living their universal role as anyone I have ever met. An inspiration.
Whether we know life close and full, vivid and absorbing as clouds and choirs or earth and elements or any other interpretation is ours to behold and treasure. The interpretations themselves are as passing clouds and teeming earth.
It is our contact with life that matters.
Ashton-brown-recylcing-bin-Dandelion-seed-head-in-the-Sun – Gavin-Birchall
The universe.
You are what the universe is doing.
Just here, for now.
When you think, you are not thinking,
The universe is thinking.
When you feel, you are not feeling,
The universe is feeling.
When you move, you are not moving,
The universe is moving.
You are the universe.
The universe is you.
Two words for the same.
Forget those words.
When you sit, you are not sitting,
The universe is sitting.
When you breath, you are not breathing,
The universe is breathing.
When you love, you are not loving,
The universe is loving.
The universe is what you are doing.
Just here, for now.
Gavin Birchall