I come out of my head. Into the world.
Sticky with the residue of my thoughts, I’m born into the present.
This world of my present is alive, and a thousand water striders dance on the glass.
And a dozen dragonflies dart and light and dart again.
And the clouds dance a glib dance in their dreams, jiggling beneath strider’s staccato rhythm, their actual bodies asleep on a pillow of blue.
And a minuscule spider strings off my shoulder.
Pardon me, I don’t much want the company. But she resists my gentle brush and finds her way to my leg. How many of your kind have I swallowed unknowingly? The thought smirks its way to my lips.
Then the sounds awake. Or do I awake to them?
And palm tree fronds rub their fingers in a gentle clap of praise.
And the cooing and squawking and chittering and lilting song of the birds.
And a sudden kersploosh! I look quickly but see only ripples where a creature disappeared into the brown shallows.
Rocked by the ripples, a pond plant bobs, dainty, diamond leaves, spiraling outward. Like a lily pad shattered into one hundred symmetrical fragments. Perfect artistry.
My mind’s eye records the moment, awash in its beauty.
No matter the rotting bamboo poles and floating bottles just meters away.
No matter the rough concrete, deteriorating as it slopes waterward.
No matter.
There is life here. Life within. Life without. Life given. Life taken. Life lived. Life present.
And I want to capture it. Wish I had my camera. But my photography skills are so lacking, the shots would never hold the sacredness of the moment.
But words.
Can I hold this place with my words?
Can I mold them around the essence of its goodness and create a vessel to treasure its beauty?
Yet words lack. Words leak.
But words stir the imagination, and the mind creates a scene of its own. A story of its own. A life of beauty, perhaps even more beautiful than reality.
Words touch the soul of man.
Our bodies see and hear and feel and smell and taste. Yet in the mind the Almighty paints, and we see and hear and feel and smell and taste a world of understanding.
And words are the bridge. The bridge between the body and the mind.
Words give a path where Spirit treads.
From heart to head, from head to heart. All is fair game for the One who made both.
And now I’ve retreated inside again, lost in thought, yet ablaze with wonder.
In this way I am born and reborn every day.
Finding the life of the present. Finding the life of my soul.
The great paradox of man: body and soul. Distinct and yet one. Inseparable and yet we move fluidly between the two. Alive and yet dying.
But one day, all will be life. Union. Complete.
All will be present.
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