Fabric of the Universe
With the largest unsanctioned boat race in the US coinciding with my 2-week trip to Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri, I arrived early to gawk at the fleet of insanely fast boats some boasting speeds of over 200 mph. Asking the driver of a sleek boat named ‘Low Altitude’ about his prospects for winning, he replied in a tone imbued with Top Gun Navy pilot swagger and Ozark country-bumpkin drawl, “It’s powered by twin helicopter turbines at 3000 hp each [gulp]. We’re down a 1000 horsepower per side compared to our competition, so we’re going to run nitro-methane [fuel] today to see if we can make up the difference.” Picking my jaw up off the dock planks, I asked how well he thought that might work. “Well, we’ve never actually tried it before, so we’ll just have to race and see what we get.” Unbelievable - I figured it would be worth the wait just to see if the thing blows up.
Perusing the rest of the fleet moored at the marina while boats accelerated through the start gate on the ¾-mile course with engines whining, I sat back taking in the whole scene when the thought of a dear friend crossed my mind. Jamie would have thoroughly enjoyed being there as I recalled the many times we ventured to the drag races and go-cart tracks in Denver in our college days. A true friend, a soul mate, and one of the few people on the planet with whom I’ve ever felt completely understood, Jamie died in 2005 (obit) from brain cancer and has been sorely missed since. While this memory was little more than a passing thought in one moment, I was taken completely by surprise in the next when I experienced the very real energetic sense of Jamie standing next to me as if he’d materialized right there in the flesh. My heart lept with joy “seeing” him again while at the same time, tears welled up from the sadness of missing him so deeply for so many years. My visceral sense of him was so strong I said aloud, “There you are Jamie, so good to see you!” and we began conversing as old friends. I told him about all the boats, caught him up on life, and recounted stories from bygone days as if we were palling around together again. Lingering in each other’s delightfully felt presence for a long while, we were two souls reconnecting with love and gratitude.
Retelling the story a few days later to Kisha, a wise, intuitive, and incredibly talented Somatic therapist I’d been seeing, I told her of the deep friendship Jamie and I shared while he was alive and the visceral presence of him I felt at the boat races that weekend. Speaking from my heart with free-flowing emotions of joy and sadness, something profound happened at that moment as Kisha held space for my deeply open-hearted expression. As if transported to another realm, I fell into a state of awareness brimming with connection and an intensity of emotion I could feel permeating every cell of my body. I told Kisha, “There is sadness in my fingers and grieving in my toes”. Though I’d never experienced anything like this before, it felt quite natural. Thoughts, feelings, and sensations continued to arise but the inner voice of mind, to which I’m so accustomed to its analysis, narration, and interpretation of life, was completely quiet. As if observing leaves drifting by on the surface of a slow-moving stream from the bank, I seemed to be resting in pure awareness, simply observing what is, plugged into the direct experience of life itself without any intermediary.
From this timeless place, I began noticing emotional energies within myself, or Parts as Dick Schwartz of Internal Family Systems (IFS) might call them. My first encounter was with The Heart Guard who I’d actually come to know during meditations over several years prior. His job is to dutifully protect the heart watching for emotional threats that could poke old wounds and keep them from evoking painful feelings of abandonment or shame. He’s a strong and faithful servant but having apparently taken on this role at a young developmental age, he lacks sophistication and discernment. When threats arise, he simply covers over the heart with what feels like a huge block of concrete. An effective strategy for protecting the heart, but one which comes at the cost of my ability to feel feelings, any feelings. On this occasion, however, from a place of open awareness, the concrete was set aside and the guard stood down allowing full and undefended access.
I sensed other energies, one being the Sacred Place Within that seemed to be a hallowed place of pure essence. And another, The Tender One - a distinctly feminine part of exquisite beauty whom I experienced as the holder of love itself. She seemed timid and reluctant to come out of the shadows, untrusting, likely having been hurt and not understood in the past. My hope is that I can get to know her in time, that we might heal together, that she may feel safe enough to come home and one day find that love requires no defense or protector - extraordinary.
Drifting up from the depths of awareness after some time, I asked Kisha plainly, “What just happened?” She replied that some deep soul healing likely occurred and suggested I take it real slow for a while and let things settle. With tremendous gratitude and humility, I bid her farewell and set out for a walk on a warm Midwest summer evening.
Instead of heading to the main road for the usual goal-driven vigorous exercise walk, I was drawn to the lake below and traversed the break wall at water’s edge completely relaxed, sensing to let things happen as they wanted to happen. My already easy gate wanted to slow further, so my body heeded in response. Again, another call to adjust pace and the legs slowed to almost a crawl. As when a musician tunes her instrument to play in harmony with others, it seemed my body’s movement and speed were being synchronized to that of nature’s ensemble around me.
I noticed that my mind was still active with its usual stream of thoughts, but something was very different. The ‘I’ doing the noticing was neither distracted nor carried away by thoughts or sensations as it usually does. The ‘I’ that was observing seemed to be awareness itself. Being perfectly tuned and synchronized with the orchestra of the universe, my senses took in the direct experience of existence with a remarkable quality of aliveness:
The sounds of waves breaking against the shore were of incredible fidelity. The nuance of every droplet of water in every wave lapping up against the rocks could be distinguished.
The warm summer breeze caressed my face with the texture of silk.
The color of the leaves on the trees reflecting an insanely vibrant depth of green.
A Blue Heron gliding above the water performing its miracle of flight with wondrous ease.
An air conditioner unit whirring nearby and a speed boat charging up the lake with its engine roaring. These sounds I’ve oft judged as unnatural and unwanted, but today they were welcomed as equal contributors to the cacophony of life’s vibration, one sound neither better nor worse than another.
The sweet tenderness of a baby snake stretched out on the breakwall soaking up the concrete’s stored warmth before nightfall.
The sunset, stretching across the horizon in exquisite detail with extraordinary clarity, expressing itself in an array of artful hues fading into a palette of progressively deeper reds.
The tear rolling down my cheek, feeling, yes FEELING - in absolute awe of the sheer beauty held in each moment.
Leaning back against the break wall, arms stretched wide in complete tranquility, I felt a profound sense of connection to everything feeling not just a part of, but as the fabric of life itself.
Up the path, two squirrels were chasing around an Oak tree and we all became aware of each other in the same moment - a co-arising of sorts. As if this awareness were an invitation to come over and play, the pair turned and came bounding down the ledge toward me. Being in my current mindstate of fabric, they bore down without the slightest hesitation. At about 10 feet away, my awareness noticed a thought arise within me that carried a concern, “If the squirrels keep coming and run up my outstretched arms and over my head, one could bite my ear and that might hurt!”. Normally, the unconscious mind would have sprang my body into action with a fight or flight response defending against the risk of a squirrel bite. But in my current state, awareness had choice about which thoughts to act on or not, and plenty of time to choose since time doesn’t seem to exist in that realm. What actually happened was that awareness allowed the thought to manifest fear in my body which must have elicited a similar response in the squirrels as they immediately halted their advance. Staring at each other, the three of us evaluating what wanted to happen now that fear was in the air, the squirrels thought better of the play date, turned and scampered away.
With the luminous orb of the full moon rising above the Ozark hills to the east and reflecting gently across the lake, I returned home in tranquility from a most remarkable walk. Upon much reflection over the weeks and months that followed, I found my experience best captured by Eckhart Tolle who articulates it as the Eternal Now - a state of timeless Being entirely connected as the fabric of the universe itself. Experiencing my walk from that place of pure awareness was extraordinary and I desire to inhabit more of that space more of the time, if that’s what wants to happen. If any of you reading this have experienced something similar or are willing to offer guidance on moving in that direction, I’d love to hear from you.
With regard to the playful squirrels, I’ve always entertained the thought that it would be fun to see what would have happened had awareness not allowed fear to arise but simply let the concerned thought pass by without a response. I feel most certain the squirrels would have kept coming and run right over my head WITHOUT nibbling my ear, for there would have been nothing to fear - a valuable life lesson.
