Mindfulness, Nature and Time

“There are times in life when we experience a time space warp such that you shift into another dimension that reveals the totality of our existence and immortality.”

Ríos, 2017, TS+EF=SC

It’s morning and I see the full moon setting over my balcony. I’m watching this happen on the same balcony that I watched the sun set last night.

Light streams in from the other side. I run to the window that faces East.

The sun is also rising!

I’m suddenly aware that I’m in that precise moment of time when the moon is setting and the sun is rising and I can see both from my light tower.

I wonder about meaning until I stop worrying about meaning and I just sit and breathe and drink coffee and observe the unfolding of an ending and a beginning.

The sun rises and the full moon lowers in the sky. Its brightness slowly fades, while the other enlarges and emanates.

I remember how I wept death last night and stretched out my hand—

Now, it’s morning and the full moon sets peacefully over my balcony.

The sun rises in the East.

The moon is a pale, circle in the sky.

My eyes hardly perceive it but it is there.

Nature on a Motorcycle

I was surfing and flying through open space, feeling the pulse and pounding wind on my body, sensing the tarmac road beneath. I smelled everything. Manure fertilizes miles of land and it stinks. But it’s real and it goes away when you pass on to the next sensation of mother earth and civilization intermingling. Like, I meditated on the red wild flowers that lined one long road that went on for miles and I wondered, did someone take this same ride and sprinkle seeds? What a thought that someone would spend a day driving along a side road sprinkling wildflower seeds to bring travelers joy. Like, being mesmerized by the mountain drop, the deep hidden valleys that look like green waves and seeing so far away that distance is a riddle.

I got cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon and I learned how to stop, adjust and dress properly.

Oh, what great joy feeling the elements on my eyes, on my body!

Side roads are spectacular. You end up passing through small in-between towns that feel lost but important. These roads are curved and steep and jittery, but the sensation is you are suspended in real-time and surrendering to surprise.

Nature’s beauty nourishes the body and soul. I breathed well, felt curious and uplifted. Removing the window frame was magic.

People worship nature for a reason. Watch the sky, the ocean waves or the mountains. Watch a fire flickering. This is all a kind of nature worship. It’s mesmerizing and fulfilling. It’s a love affair and just as healthy.

I’m beginning to understand the urgency of protecting our environment. It’s not a white paper anymore, it’s an experience. I believe in preserving our wildlife and our parks, our free shores and our landscapes. The urgency of proper planning is there.

I want us to build and develop homes and communities with a consciousness. I want us to honor nature and use it’s wisdom and eat its fruit to nourish our existence.

Solar panels are smart and a spiritual practice.

I want open space and access to unobstructed sky for all people. The earth will appreciate stretching out and she will welcome us here longer.

We need to understand and talk about our relationship to nature. Each of us is different but we are all human and have this similarity, this need for sun and water and mountains and air.

We can do this.  

I cried for an hour during the sunset on the way home. My butt was buzzing.

What is Free Love?

Free love is an uncomplicated offering, compassion and peace, gentleness and caring. It is allowing the touch of another human being with great tenderness and joy for living.

Free love emanates from overflowing inner light. It is nuzzling your nose in the essence of all things, it is caressing, touching, digging into Mother earth, getting soiled with the nectar of living.

Free love has no obligation or expectation other than being yourself in front of another, revealing and seeing openly. Allowing presence to exist with care and curiosity. It is a moment of calmness and acceptance, keeping company, vulnerable and afraid are we, to sense that need of this lonely journey.

Free love is courageous honesty and small actions and deeds that scream authenticity and vivacity. The willingness to step out of routine, reach out and touch a person suffering, call out madness as we breathe, sit quietly or make love when we are alone and weary.

Free love is sharing and embodying love and kindness energy that is always overflowing from your own inner source of peace. The willingness to step out naked into society, letting others see you undisguised and unashamed. Unharmed by it all, although giddy.

Free love is giving up privacy and letting go of surface things but holding onto inner links.

Free love is showing up in the world innocent and foolish, owning your awkwardness, feeling your way through darkness, finding out that nothing more is needed other than your simple presence and first steps.

Free love is making yourself the ocean or the mountains, flowing and solid, always available, beautiful nature is yours, nothing is expected of you other than appearing. It is that moment togetherness brings.

Loving freely is the greatest expression of life and living.

Don’t be afraid, please.