Another cool
and early morning up before the sun could greet me. Many thoughts have I from so many sources
taking hold. Understanding comes in
leaps and bounds or not at all for long periods of time, it seems in my little
world. I watched a few leaves let loose
from the tree in this morning’s twilight and my being launched into a stream of feeling. As the feelings struggled for thoughts to
label them, my mind reached back across the span of my life for its recurring
themes. Looking back I realize that at
times in my life I have created a thought process in which I was merely a
helpless leaf blown in the wind. While I
may at times have identified with the leaf blown helplessly in the wind, the
soul in me now knows and begins to truly understand with all the feeling of
existence, I am neither now nor have I ever been merely a victim of the wind. With a lifetime of hard-won
lessons I have come to realize that I am not just the leaf but also the
wind. Going deeper within and engaging
in further reflection and introspection beyond the realization or
identification with being the wind itself, I realize that I am also the waves of temperatures
disruptive…creating the hot or cold convection that generated the impetus
behind the wind.
The words
upon this page representing the feelings washing over me just now are most difficult to articulate. These waves of understanding come in the
feelings of deep soul knowing that take much time and thought not to understand
but to put into words. Lifetimes of
lessons can sometimes download into consciousness in an instant taking one much
time to fully taste the sweetness of understanding. I revel both in the process of tasting
understanding but also the process of striving for it. With my very human mind operating at
superficial levels, there can be no understanding at all. It’s almost as if there is this limited understanding
of the mind and this full knowingness of the heart (read soul) that wrestles
joyously with much difficulty to “get” what’s trying so hard to come in…or,
well, rise to the surface of conscious cognition. I am momentarily distracted by process as I
type these words. A common construct for
me that leaves me hopelessly trapped inside of a box from which nothing can be
properly understood. Exiting procedural
thoughts, I go back to the memory that started this string of thoughts and
realizations and feel the coolness of the morning swirling around me while
my thoughts drift in silent contemplation.
When I
watched the leaves as they fell from the tree in the half-light of the morning,
I too remembered how many times I have fallen into themes of existence thinking
I had no power to soar. Before the
realization of the wind and the source behind its currents, I saw and felt with
full measure the experience of falling time and time again, frustrated that I
couldn’t hold on to something. The real problem was
that I couldn’t let go of a construct or, rather, a mis-understanding of the
framework within which I truly existed.
It’s hard to experience and step back from the experiencing but until
you find a way, there is no way to truly understand what is really happening
beyond the perceptions environmental psychology has created within the mind. So, I experienced helplessness at the mercy
of the breeze caused by unintentional conditions in my life metaphorically speaking. In so doing, I gave away all
of my power to everyone and everything around me never once understanding I was
thinking so deeply within the box that I’d be trapped there an eternity if I
didn’t do something different. When
repeating the same series of thoughts and actions over and over only ever
resulted in more of the same discomfort and disharmony in my life, at some
point the thought occurred to me that perhaps certain repeating messages and
messengers were placed on my path for a reason.
From there began the realization that I was the one who agreed to take
on both messengers and messages. I
learned over much time and through many frustrated and angry tears that I only
ever had myself to control and I was never helpless to do that. But, in my own defense, you can’t know what
you don’t know and the only way to know anything is to learn through first-hand
experience (or so it seems for me, at least).
At one point
in my life in the not-too distant past, I stood alone with all that came before
upended in emotional chaos and then came the urge to retreat. I stepped out of and back from all of my
creations, messengers and messages and in mere moments understood the creations were mine even if I did
not know how or why. All of the
struggle, the tears, the emotions and pain, disappeared like the ground mist in
full morning sunlight. When I chose to
relax and decided to exist neither in the past nor hide out in some worry over the
future, the disruptive clash of temperatures (read emotion) stabilized and the winds (read percpetions) no longer
blew. I was thrilled beyond belief and relaxed even
further into the stillness of presence. In
the peace created so fully in the absence of my resistance to my own life, I
rested upon the land of pure existence and being-ness that I also created within the whole of my
experience. Just as I would, me being
me, I set for myself confirmation and validation in an endless stream of
feeling that took years to understand.
And believe me, I endeavor to understand so much more still. In all of these words and prior experience, I could have saved
myself so much time had I learned to align more with a simpler concept/term, a concept/term
whose essence hummed humbly and silently in the background of my consciousness patiently awaiting recognition all along. Stepping fully outside of the
box now, understanding much better the whole of my own creations now and
trusting implicitly the reasons will be revealed to me by me in perfect time,
the words come so clearly now in feeling.
Simply…beautifully…powerfully—I AM.
(c) 2013 Jaie Hart (photo copyright also mine)
