Yesterday I met a friend at Tennessee Valley.  I was early so I placed a blanket under the trees and lay on my back looking up, listening to chirps, and feeling the breeze.

We met and walked in unprecedented heat to the beach.  98 degrees, I learned later. We like to walk and talk because as is said, Solvitur Ambulando.  “It is solved by walking”.

What is the “it” you might ask, and in this case, there was no it, just an opening to connect with ourselves, each other, and the landscape of which we’re part.

When we got to the ocean, we looked for shade, and found a little inlet, not a cave because it was open at the top but it allowed us to sit in the shade of the cliff.  The rock held water that dripped down my back.

When I mentioned still grieving my brother’s death, she asked what that felt like, and at first I thought of what I’d read, that grief is like waves, comes and goes like waves, but then I realized it was something more.  It was expansiveness.

I’m feeling my brother open me to something more, to spaciousness. It’s the cosmic joke perhaps, the huge laugh, and maybe that’s what the Big Bang was, and is, a giant “guffaw”. Who knows but I think we’re designed to laugh, as much as we can, even as we recognize happiness is helping others, because in helping others, we help ourselves because we are all One.