A meander: Love and nature

Looking out over the marsh.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

~ Joseph Campbell

Lands end.

I find myself wanting to repeat the quote I started with, or reword it somehow (although it certainly doesn’t need reworded since it expresses what it means quite well without my help).  I read it yesterday and it resonated so strongly with me that I could almost feel it vibrating or rippling within me in the same way a chime or bell at the end of meditation ripples or vibrates, as though it begins at the outer or energy body (aura) and works its way inward until every cell has taken up the tintinnabulation.

Glowing in the evening sunlight.

I listened to a talk by Ram Dass the other day in which he was taking questions.  One woman prefaced her questions with the statement, “I have a codependent relationship with God.”  There was some good-natured laughter from the audience, maybe from Ram Dass as well.  I laughed, too.  I think I understand what she was getting at.  My relationship with what I think of as the idea of God hasn’t been a healthy one.  That might be a result of growing up Catholic.  I can’t be sure because I’ve been away from the church much longer than I ever participated in it which leads me to believe I’m stuck in a pattern from the past rather than being with the idea of God — or gods or the Divine (or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, if that’s your thing) — in the present.

Ice at the edge.

Ram Dass’s suggestion to the woman was to get outside into nature where she might stop projecting her idea of God onto the Divine.  It made perfect sense to me because it is outside, in nature, that I feel the divine within and without, and have had many of those moments of bliss or oneness.  Gone is the idea of God, the God of the Catholic church or the God of the evangelicals and the fanatics.  Instead, there is just this… Presence which is neither here nor there, everywhere and nowhere.

Sitting still in the light.

Call it what you want — the Superman Complex, the Peter Parker syndrome — hiding a huge aspect of who we are, of being one thing yet pretending to be another, is a divided life.  Keeping our divinity in the dark is taxing.  I think we’re done.  It’s too much of a hassle.

We have worn out the fertility of this viewpoint, and it’s time to stop investing in the limits we’ve identified with and start believing in the impossible, the ineffable, that lives in and through us all the time.  It’s time to come out of the spiritual closet.  We need to let our own mystery breathe.  It’s time to unlock the chains we have placed on the most magical aspect of our being and let our inner mystic go for a walk around the neighborhood in broad daylight.

If you tell me that your life is boring, that nothing extraordinary has ever happened; if you have been waiting for someone else to know that you are so much more than the normal facade you present to others; if you have been seeking validation of your “weirdness” outside of yourself, consider this sentence my silent nod.  I see you.  I am calling your bluff.

Lay your cards on the table.

I know you’re human.  But I also know you’re Divine.

~ Meggan Watterson, Reveal

Sunset colors on ice.

Love, my word for the year, keeps showing up.  That’s not a big surprise.  When I pick a word or words or theme for the year, I expect that to happen at least occasionally.  One thing you might have noticed is that I choose my word or theme for the year carefully.  I play it safe and avoid words I think might teach me big lessons, words such as “courage” or “challenge,” for instance.  I have a “be careful what you wish for” mentality when it comes to picking a word.  Even so, the safe words gather their own magic and momentum, and bring challenges as gifts for me to open, to solve, to rest in, or to work for.

New life.

The interesting thing about love is that it keeps placing itself front and center in my life.  I’ve been able to forget about (ignore) my word or theme for the year in the past, but this one, Love, doesn’t want to be ignored or taken for granted or set on the back burner.

New day.

It is a word that teaches in a soft and gentle way.  So far.  I have a feeling that if I tried to ignore it, it might conk me on the head (or throw sticks at me like the Bald Eagle did last week…lol!).  It is in the woods, the sunrises, the sunsets, the daffodil shoots springing up out of the ground, the gray clouds overhead, the February rains, the cold wind from the north, the warm wind from the south, the small herd of deer that visit daily, the sand on the beach, the waves of the water, the loblolly pines, the chubby robins gathering to feed on the wild cherries, the bluebirds building their nests in the boxes we set out for them.  It is also, of course, in my life in the form of people and relationships, family and friends, furry creatures who meow at me for their breakfast and dinner, and within my own being.  It makes me wonder why we humans have so much trouble embodying this concept.  Maybe it’s time we learned how to do that.

We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present.

~ Marianne Williamson

Breathtaking moment.

Thank you for stopping by and meandering a bit with me today.  It doesn’t look like we’ll see much at sunset this evening (we’re under some pretty heavy cloud cover) but if that should change, I’ll meet you at the Point.  Sunset this evening is scheduled for 5:40.  It’s a little chilly today so dress warmly.

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂

Light on water.

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  556)  Sunrises and sunsets.  Each and every one of them feels new when I’m present for them.  557)  Warm lemon water.  It’s my latest go-to drink.  558)  Learning how to listen.  559)  The right teachers at the right moments.  560)  A glimpse of spring.