How do we receive what surrounds us? 

I was out early this morning, 5:15, the world still dark, and yet in that darkness I felt awareness of what surrounds, and then when light comes I feel a different need to discern what impacts me now.

I was discussing seeing in the dark with my husband who used to navigate his mountain bike down Mount Tam in the dark.  How did he see? He looked up at the stars.

Where he could see the stars, he knew there was a path. Otherwise, the sky was clouded with trees.

I have a card here with words from one of my favorite books, The Little Prince.  “For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides.”

Of course, in the day, we have our sun, our bright star that ensures our living and growth.  At night, the stars are further away and yet we savor and twinkle in their light.

I’m more aware of light this time of year as I watch the exchange of light and dark, and see my plants respond to the longer days.  Looking within for images, I feel antennae reach to power, touch and stimulate what dreams.  

I’m reading The People of the Sea by David Thomson. It taps into my ancestral roots of people who may have believed we see and move between the veils, see and move where fairies dwell, and elves, and seals and people exchange land and sea.

Who knows what beckons now, this day, February 4th, as we open and widen the folds in the curtains separating light and dark?

As plants respond to light increasing, I’m entranced with the changes. Orchids reach new budding stems.  All stretches in the light, including me. I feel awake.  

I rearranged the artwork on two walls today.  I breathe in the shift.

I had hung this poem up on the wall and now I take it down.

Embody. Purify.

The poem is by Kabir, a 15th century Poet and is translated by Robert Bly.

Student, do the simple purification.

You know, that the seed is inside the horse-chestnut tree;

and inside the seed there are the blossoms of the tree and the chestnuts and the shade.

So inside the human body there is the seed and inside the seed there is the human body again.

Fire, air, earth, water and space -

if you don't want the secret one, you can’t have these either.

Thinkers, listen, tell me what you know of that is not inside the soul?

Take a pitcher full of water and set down on the water -

now it has water inside and water outside.

We mustn't give it a name,

lest silly people start talking again about the body and the soul.

If you want the truth, I'll tell you the truth:

Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you.

The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself,

and he is the one who has made it all.

I’ve upped my study of Feng Shui, the understanding of the flow of energy. I’ve read about the importance of a sturdy and steady headboard, and now we have one, and I feel the difference as I inhabit our bed. I spend more time there, which depends on your view, but I use the time as a meditation on wholeness, healing, organizing, and reception.

This morning lying cocooned in bed, cloaked in early morning dark, I remembered the words of my teacher of Sensory Awareness, Charlotte Selver. “The organism is intelligent.” Yes!

I surrender into intelligence, my small realm, and the wider intelligence of the Earth. She heals.

I’ve taken all artwork off the walls in two rooms and enchanted with walls bright with fresh paint, I seem unwilling or unable to mar the clear and clean surface with choices of the past.  

Because mirrors and paintings are on the floor awaiting my decision, I see them differently, and come to this quote by D. H. Lawrence:

“It is a question, practically of relationship. We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the universe . . . . For the truth is, we are perishing for lack of fulfillment of our greater needs, we are cut off from the great sources of our inward nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally in the universe. Vitally the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe.”

“We must plant ourselves again in the universe.”

I’m reminded of a baby’s rooting reflex, how a baby turns toward stimulus to suck. The Earth is here; she calls; she offers nourishment and support.

Though I know that change is constant, sometimes I resist it until I don’t.

I was up in the night beckoning and receiving a wider view.  I love the spaciousness of early morning hours with nowhere to go and nothing to do, so that what’s deep within comes creeping and dancing forth.  

When my sons were young, we spent the night at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  We placed our sleeping bags near the octopus tank, and in the evening darkness, he/she unwrapped to explore.  We watched with care.

My inner felt like that this morning, a nuzzling forth and a peering out. There can be safety in the dark.

In cleaning, cleansing, and opening space in my home, I feel spacious.  There’s more to go but certain sections have objects touched, contemplated, and chosen to stay because they give me joy, and touching inside gives joy too.  I welcome and give thanks for this poem.

INSIDE THIS CLAY JUG

A POEM BY KABIR, TRANSLATION BY ROBERT BLY

Inside this clay jug

there are canyons and

pine mountains,

and the maker of canyons

and pine mountains!

All seven oceans are inside,

and hundreds of millions of stars.

The acid that tests gold is here,

and the one who judges jewels.

And the music

that comes from the strings

that no one touches,

and the source of all water.

If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:

Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.

This morning I read Richard Rohr.  “We don’t have to know.”

Last night I read Pema Chodron: When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. 

Some days I think I’m doing well, and other days, not so much, but today I know there is no “I” and I don’t have to know.

May unity, trust, and receptivity guide, treasure, and lead us all.