Connected

The gulls soar over head repeating their daily flight in from the ocean. I wonder what it must be like to soar so high above the frenetic human activity us flat-landers dwell within day in and day out. I think about what it might be like just to be so high, riding the wind, flying in formation, seeking out a simple seeming existence of leafy shelter and scraps of human sustenance.

A few more stragglers float high above, trying to catch up and join the simple formation…one, two, five more join the pursuit of something my mere mortal mind cannot understand.

It's crisp and cold in morning's first light. I stand outside alone in the mists, the fresh and clean recently washed air. The rain from last night cleared away all the dust, soaked it right into the ground from which it originally came. Held down by the weight of the moisture to reside there until the warmth of the sun dries it out and the winds return to blow it about again.

The sun creeps up over the housing development across the street from me. I wonder what it might have been like to see it rise above the horizon not littered with housing developments and other man made structures. What beauty must have been seen with the view uncluttered with suburban life in progress. It must have been still, quiet, grass and flowers wet with dew as far as the eye could see. I won't ever know what that looks like. I can only ever feebly attempt to imagine that view.

The south coast is beginning to stir in earnest. I hear the whir of tiny metal boxes speeding down the highway. In between the sounds I hear something else, the hissing crash of the powerful ocean whose waters still raging, expanded by storm surge. It's amazing to hear it from blocks away but it's a comfort knowing it's there. At any time, a short walk takes me to the shore where I can drink in the view of teal blue water, soak in the energy of the powerful current and slip silently into a seemingly fixed aspect of the scenery.

It's an interesting time in the world it seems. There are so many struggles that don't have to be. I worry about the place I brought my children. Will it truly be safe for them to exist in this time and this place? No matter, it's already done. I think I will struggle indefinitely with these thoughts. All I can do is teach them to see with clear focused vision, understand the underpinnings of the real world and what is important behind the facade of normal existence. I believe that life has purpose and meaning beyond the day to day struggles. I think that life isn't something we have it's something we are and that we do. We're all connected from my tiny feathered friends in flight to the souls in shiny metal boxes headed for unknown destinations, from the sun, to the moon and to the tides even.

I leave my reverie behind and return to mundane existence. I've chores to do to exist in the society in which I find myself but, I will be reminded as I go through my day that there is more to this seeming mundane existence, there is more to what I have to buy, do and see. There is the soul at the heart of it whose energy contracts, expands and connects to all of existence.