Inside myself, the ’tone’ of my own enquiry has shifted. As I move from what I know or have known, to what I know I don’t know, there is a sense of being set adrift in a weightless environment. Perhaps this is what a walk in space might feel like.
I am more present to the moment; more in the ’now’ as I release myself from searching and just wait…. for the thoughts to pass by; invitations for me to consider rather than ’trying’ to figure it out or understand it. In that, I realize that the largest context that I will ever find/know/discover/claim is that I AM. Way down at the bottom of that spiral – as the tiny speck in space/time from which I have chosen to express – when I remember that I AM the Void, the weightlessness comes.
In the moment. No external references – past or future. Just the now, the very thing that we have been trained to never notice.
I am noticing that my thoughts are so fleeting. I have one; something moves through me and I am changed; and in that short time, it is gone. The things that compartmentalize and divide in my physical world (i.e. what day it is – and when that is claimed, the underlying meaning is that time/space can be labelled; and that if it is X, it cannot be anything other than X, etc.) lose meaning, more and more. Does it really matter if it’s Monday or Saturday? Perhaps what really matters is how I am choosing to live.
I am also noticing that the further I stray from the group-speak and accepted parameters of what matters in a collective, the stranger I sound! Funny how that happens…. Perhaps we are all strange.
Having spent so much of my adult life capturing the moments of my own evolution to generalize for others, I am aware that I am no longer doing that. My thoughts are my own, for me. If witnessed and they matter to another, great. If not, equally great. What matters most, is: am I paying attention?
It is different for me to share what remains (as this process is/has been for me with all of you) than it is to think in order to generalize and share. Once, it was all about the world and others. Now, it is all about me.
I know that I am removing myself, more and more. Oddly, in a world where the story is that hanging on to defining ourselves is what matters most, what I have experienced is that allowing those boundaries to soften and disappear into a larger ’no thing’ has been and is much more meaningful, relevant and potent in making the moment compelling. I am discovering the great joy – and great power – of Being, undefined.
In these times, I bear witness to my mother removing herself in (to me) such a fractured way. Fractured mind. And yet, I know that it is all unfolding as it should.
I know that when it is time for her, it will be the signal to me that it is time for me. To go. The question that remains is: what is the destination? And at how many levels of thinking?
Today, I am mindful of consumption. The consumption of thoughts and ideas. The consumption of consciousness. What thoughts am I buying? My own or those of another? What calls to me most: the thought itself or the packaging around it; the sense of ‘shiny’ and my crow-ness in moving toward it? What ideas am I choosing to pick off the shelf and take home with me, allowing them to infiltrate my day-to-day expression. How much of my consumption of consciousness emerges from within me and how much swirls around me, waiting for me to select and quiet the chaos?
Today, I am aware of and present to noticing the degree to which external references continue to infiltrate my patterns of consumption. As I move through my day, mine is to notice how many of my thoughts…. my musings…. are in some way connected to yesterday or tomorrow; to a story long held or a dream yet unlived. How often does the voice of another penetrate my wonderings about my world; and how frequently are those thoughts about my world ‘out there’ rather than my world ‘in here’.
Imagine a life/reality/day without any external references. Neither guided by, influenced by nor over-ridden by external references…. things outside the ’now’ moment, as revealed by inner cues.
No references to history.
No story of or from the past.
No expectations of others to skew my mindfulness.
No emotions of others to redirect.
No rules/regulations/dogma.
What does a life of internal referencing look like? Sound like? And do we notice? Do we notice the degree to which we are directed and redirected by the overt and subtle influences? Do we have a capacity to calibrate for them? We have been trained not to notice. Might we ’train’ ourselves, differently?
Something is going on inside me that is a reflection of what has not yet occurred. I was about to write that my physical body is tied to this physical world…. and yet, I am not so sure about that. “World’ is a vibration and nothing more. When I do/be/think within the confines of matter, I am tied to matter. When I do/be/think outside the confines of space/time, I am tied to nothing; free to take whatever form is meaningful and relevant, in the moment.
It seems to always come back to that simple notion of ‘in the moment’. Consuming consciousness in that vast, expansive and forever moment. Our children, more than any other, live easily and naturally ‘in the moment’ until we teach them otherwise. Until we insist they look outside themselves for guidance and direction; look to another to determine their next choice; and look back to anticipate the future. We train them as we, ourselves, been trained. Ah yes! The gift that keeps on giving….
Each of you, in what you have so generously shared in the offering of your own internal truths/discoveries, has paved the way for me to arrive in this moment. Perhaps because of my own mother/daughter dance, Naomi’s thought reverberate. I remember the moment, oh-so-long-ago, when I told my mother (as she chastised me for yet another ‘failed’ marriage) that if I were ever going to have a ’successful relationship’, I would first have to divorce myself from her. It changed our lives…. and not in any ways that either of us might have anticipated. The power was in the freedom to be honest; to dare to despair in each of us not fulfilling the unlived/unexpressed dreams of the other. In that moment, the door opened for us to be unique and authentic, as individuals and with each other. A dance of equals rather than a dance of mother/daughter. She, free of the burden of having to shape me; and me, free of the burden of having to adapt to being shaped by another.
So today, I simply notice. How much/how often that which is other than my Self creeps into my consumption of my own consciousness and numbs me to magnificence; redirects me to settling for a ‘reality’ of caring/responding/acclimating to any and all things other than Self. In this moment, I am so aware of the great, organized and ancient effort to ensure that I pay attention to anything BUT my Self.
As I notice, today, perhaps you will, too.
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