Reflections in flight from shore to shore
Oakland to Honolulu October 15, 2014
Words don’t come. In these times I wish I could paint my impressions of thoughts. I’d paint illumination and shadow, light pouring over an expanse of fog, Earth turning from the sun as it shares the last warm moments of the day. I’d paint a seismograph of masts, the Berkeley Ruins – a lattice of memory allowing passage near and far. I’d find myself drifting in the middle of a great bay, no wind to propel me, suspended between shores. Why does this place whose winds funnel and gnaw into the heart bring such peaceful surrender? I feel I’ve been introduced to a great love, or a great love has come over me. My heart feeling a direct transmission from the sun. My mind eased by the gentle caress of water along the shore. There is no one person extending or receiving. This love seems to fall within a geography, and yet, I carry these impressions throughout each day, across the Pacific, into my life on islands thrust from the crust below.
The moon rose to illuminate streets of human desire. Lamplight pushed through leaves stacking coins upon a sidewalk. An array of trapezoids and shades of grey dancing on concrete, mesmerizing vision, interrupted by round sweeping tendrils of darkness. A theme is emerging, becoming sharper as the black and white images of Dorothea Lange emerge from a concourse. Men with backs against the wall, a wheelbarrow upturned and discarded, the legs of a woman crossed in mended stockings, a spine rounding to the dirt. How will we carry ourselves within life? What postures will we conform to in the curse and blessings of gravity? I am held to the Earth by a force that also delivers my weight closer to the soil, to the bottom of the sea where in time this body will settle. In life we are challenged to extend our heads into the universe beyond our limits. Where will we find this courage?
There is a grace to standing, to moving through life, transitions between light and dark, reaching, falling, and landing. We face uncertainty, forever defining substance and shadow. How do we find the steady trust when there is no thread of certainty?
Let’s begin by listing what is certain. In life there is breath, and all beings that breathe will eventually come to die. There is no dispute in this. And we know that as long as we are living, we will be accompanied by the moon, sun, stars, earth, water, and sky. In breath and the elements we are given an opportunity to connect to a steady presence in our experience of life on Earth. This is the direct transmission of knowledge and light. In awareness we are comforted as the child is comforted by her provider. Life is being granted to us. It is our responsibility to reach for what we need, let go of what we do not.
You may ask, how can we empower our quest to live? How do we stay focused and clear like the House of the Sun, Haleakalā, cresting clouds in the distance? I will answer by shedding layers of impressions and patterns, releasing thought, being with what is actually occurring, and allowing life to unfold in its true creativity. This is our path to releasing attachments to what people might do, to things beyond our power to change. We each have our journeys to conduct as we will. How might we live into more presence?
These are my thoughts with feet suspended away from the Earth. A reflection on being.
Image description: Wing of a plane suspended between a shadow clouded over ocean and deepening twilight above a golden fiery horizon.
