We tell ourselves that what we experience in a moment’s time, also passes in a moment’s time. We step out into the street, for example, and while crossing a car ignores the red light, and you are nearly hit: whew! That was close. And now it is history.

That is a mistaken impression, however. We have trained our eyes on our next paces, or we laughingly pick up the thread of conversation from before our scare, and move on as though nothing had happened; but something has happened, and we engrave the events of our physical lives in the same way a tree writes rings into its body for every hard winter, or an animal writes scars into its flesh and into its spirit for the threats it has narrowly avoided.

When the eyes are open, all of Creation is reduced to surfaces… imagine the poverty in a world of surfaces. As though all that an ocean offered us was its waves! As soon as the eyes open, the interiors begin to close, the interiors of everything that sight obscures from us, the interior of our selves as well.

Eyesight is the sense of abstractions and of interpretation; we interact with the world at a distance, when our other and more proximate senses cannot give us their information. To close the eyes, one is taught, is to live in darkness; but to close the eyes with awareness, to be listening with your being, invites light – so much more than one can imagine.

The earth turns toward the sun, the wake-up alarm rings; the cats begin to mill about the bed, waiting for their food; traffic begins to burn its way toward places of employ; a day begins.

The first moments of one’s day are the moments before the universe was created: all of life is waiting to be defined. In sixty seconds, or one hundred seconds, you are with the Creator, and invite the day to become what it will be.

The real significance of a pet staying out of doors much longer than anticipated – a cat or a teen, let’s say – is in remembering that the whole of this one short life is taken in through five (or more) senses and played out inside of our own being. It is the interplay of electrical and chemical energy in the cells of our bodies that is the magic of our existence, and a lost cat… 

The archer strengthens the bow arm, grips the leather, nocks an arrow, and bends the sinew to the corner of the mouth. Breath enters as the bow is drawn, breath is stilled as the arrow is poised for flight, and all is released together. Release.

And the arrow, willed to its destination strikes home.

Meditation is the arrow on the string, and the fingers which hold it; it is the arrow in flight, and the fingers which let it go; and it is the arrow arriving at the heart of the archer.

I received a gift from a student, Brian, who recently concluded our Moving Into Balance health and awareness program. Every participant brings such gifts to the group – each brings the gift of him or her Self, all the challenges they face, and all the victories they achieve; but here was a special gift, a book about the Prayer Flags of Tibet.

One passage struck me, that I wished to share: with a gentle pen it draws the line between structure and freedom, where the flow of grace is all-important, while the form through which we are accustomed to meeting that grace is perhaps less so:

While staying at the Verite Guest House, in Auroville, we were able to practice intentional small-footprint living. That “footprint” is more than where we physically step and leave a trace, but the cumulative and extended affect of our living, from food consumption and by implication food production and distribution, to energy consumption and its similar chain of delivery from source to our hands, to the consumption or acquisition of goods, whose origin is more likely than not an Asian city. 

When diving under the bedcovers for a place to snuggle in warmth and security, be sure you don’t crawl through a tiny opening in the duvet slipcover instead. Think lobster trap.

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When exploring, if you jump into a kitchen cabinet where the plates and cups are kept…

… should you jump into a kitchen cabinet – perhaps should is a better conditional here – at head height of an adult human, quiet as a cat, and the door to that cabinet should somewhat surprisingly close, don’t just sit there. Make a little noise. People are looking for you.

If you do not meet the sacred in yourself, you will not meet the sacred in anything; if you meet the sacred anywhere, even in the smallest thing, you will have found the sacred within yourself.

That is the first lesson, before all others. If you have not learned this lesson, reaching for another will reveal nothing of permanence, will move you further from the truth, and questions will be answered with questions.

I return from such a short time away, what might have been a short time away, to find that the leaves have all flown, and the slate skies of winter have taken their places at the edges of each branch and twig. This morning the wind rose up in the north, like a great wave coming ashore, and its voice spoke louder and louder in the woodlot behind the house. It’s word was cold.