Mid-June

As I prepare to say farewell to this wonderful bountiful world that surrounds me, I feel so grateful—from the tips of my toes to the peak of my mind—so grateful for the time I have spent here. I am grateful for the brother who provided me a home here for these past eight months. I am grateful for the universe that supported my being here. I am grateful for the Life that enables me to continue living and loving life. In spite of any static, the system must be working for me to have had these moments to touch eternity.

After spending the day packing, I go for a walk down to the pond. The sun has already hidden behind the trees, leaving only strips of soft pink light across the meadow. Often we humans walk with our heads so full of ideas that we are not aware of our environment. When we have more conscious moments, we at least notice our body. We may even hear the thump of our footsteps and feel the movement of our arms. Then if we get out of our heads more, we may notice something beautiful in our surroundings: a clump of daffodils heralding springtime, a scarlet tanager on the fence, a leafy branch waving gently in the breeze. But to connect with their essences, we have to become calmer and more alert. When we expand even more, we can become aware of so many things in our environment. When I’m walking through the expanse of the meadow, my awareness seems to spill out and connect with everything around me in a way that seems to sustain me and touch the surrounding plants and trees. When I am really capable of being completely Me, it’s as if the woods move my body.

This evening I actually spot some deer as I am circling around from the wooded side of the pond. I have seen their tracks—especially in Billy’s watermelon patch ¾but this is my first sighting of deer on the property. By some miracle, I see them before they spot me. I feel extraordinarily alert as one of them detects me and warns the others. In unison, they take a fast leap toward the woods. As they jump the fence, they stretch out and look so flexible that, for a moment, I wonder if they are deer. Only one lingers a moment to give me a second glance before he follows the others.

As I walk back to the house, I am so elated that I seem to be floating in the dusky glow of the last rays of sunset. I feel that I am truly more than me in this moment of sharing the woods with these magnificent animals. Then from the woods comes a strange huffing sound. Automatically, I stiffen into a super alert state. I assume the deer are warning each other that there is an alien about. All of a sudden the huffing starts resounding exactly at my left shoulder, as if it is moving up the path behind me. I tell myself that it must be some strange echoing phenomenon, for I know a deer is not following me. I keep moving along, almost floating, without any conscious effort. Finally, when I approach the gate, I look back to assure myself that there is not a deer on my tail. Of course, there is nothing there. During these lucid moments, I feel that I had an inkling of that inconceivable infinite magic that connects every living being.

I only seem to be able to realize the grandeur of the Infinite when I am in a vast landscape with far horizons and wide heavens in plain view —as if looking just past the horizon. In these moments, I perceive there is something superbly dynamic and complete in this creation. Something that sustains with utter love and complete indifference this myriad of molecules cells forms beings. It undulates in and through every one of us, yet it is something inconceivable to us all.

For we conceive with our minds, and this something created our minds. Technically, this fact makes it impossible to reach any resolution of our connection with the Infinite with our minds. So to use our minds to get to back to our basic nature is a very prickly path; really it is impossible. The mind can create thousands of realities for us to investigate, to get stimulated by, to get high on, to get lost in, but the experiences are all still in the mental world. Our love of experiencing different realities leads us to using alcohol, drugs, horror movies, mystical states, psychic intimations, sky diving and even mountain climbing—to expand our horizons.

Experiencing the world with all its possibilities has certainly been a credo of mine. I feel like I am the suction cups on a giant cosmic octopus that are made for sucking up experiences in this earth reality. In doing so, one reaches a point of psychological completeness—free of fear and suppression. I continue to do my best, but life will surely challenge and check me to see if I’m telling the truth.

This morning, when I spoke with Gavin, my astrologer friend in Sedona, I told him my dilemma. “I wanted this story to be a great saga of authentic living and connection with bountiful nature, but my life has had some challenges too. I can't just pretend that everything has been bright and rosy.”

“Of course you can't. That's what you are about: telling the truth, even when it is not advantageous for you to do so,” he countered. (Isn’t it great to have honest friends!)

“It's all about this security versus integrity thing. It's hard to be free if I bind myself with compromises.”

These moments I have spent alone with this broad and wonderful landscape remind me of the dream quality of all my experiences. We have proved with drugs that our daily reality is only another chemical reaction. Why do we want to change our reality? Because we can! The more relevant question is: Why wouldn't we want to change it? It seems like we would be better off admitting our need—and capacity ¾for experiencing many realities and finding some healthy ways to do it.

So we are caught in the web of two desires: to transcend this reality and to experience more of it. They both add up to the simple fact that we want to know more of ourselves—both sides of ourselves, both the inner and external.