Dear Friend
The days are getting longer since we passed the Winter Solstice. There was a time when I preferred the dark of the night. You know those phases of your life when it’s changing in ways you don’t like? When you want to escape, when you want to hide.
I recall a time like that in my early twenties. At night I’d seek solace from the near constant complaints and doubts from my false self by sitting on a flat roof top watching the city sparkle beneath me. That was Sheffield, a city of hills. There was an old stone wall that dropped down onto the concrete roof of a substation. I’d just sit there, looking. Enjoying the solitude. I’d forget myself by wondering about the lives of the people in the valley below. My false self would subside and something comforting would emerge.
Everything was changing.
It still is.
Our universe likes to create. It’s hard to imagine infinity. Sitting in the cold, under the stars with the wind finding its way through to skin. How little we understand.
Imagine, the life that is sustaining us, is the same life that creates the eagle or the mountain or the depths of the sea bed. All this material stuff, our own bodies all made up of indestructible energy. Ultimately light.
One source from which our universe creates endless forms.
All life forms are temporary, meaning they exist in time. The forms that life takes don’t last. We want them to, but they don’t.
The false self identifies with the form. My body, my career, my family, my friends.
What happens when we begin the shift towards identifying as the eternal creative energy just behind the forms? Maybe that’s way too abstract a concept to be of any comfort, any use.
A tree though. Looking at a tree, listening to the wind in it’s branches. The feel of its bark, imagining the roots running deep under ground, connecting to the other trees. Sharing resources, communicating. The smell of earth and moss.
Nature is one step away from the infinite creative energy that makes up our universe. Just behind it. It’s beating your heart right now.
The eternal is just behind the temporary. Like the ocean is behind the wave.
One day around this time, I was so broke I tried and failed to use parcel tape to stick the sole of my boot in place. I walked around with my sole flapping. The forms of my life were receding. My false self was having a field day, it was making me miserable. I used my last few pence to call my mother.
Her advice?
“Look up Michael. Above your head, look at the sky. It’s more beautiful than any oil painting and it’s always changing.”
The wise old Greek Socrates knew that he knew nothing. How freeing.
Take a breath. One breath. Look at the sky. Observe nature. Bring your self into the present moment.
Imagine all of us living. Imagine peace.
Like John sang.
Till tomorrow.
Love
Mikey