Category: EcoSpirituality
Great Night to Be Alive

Great Night to Be Alive

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As I laid on Earth, looking at the vast sky filled with stars, I realized it was the first time in my star gazing outings over the past year that I wasn’t monitoring equipment. I was taking in the beauty without distractions. Literally…breathing in the starlight, exhaling into Earth. Breathing in the sparkling meteors, exhaling gratitude into Earth. I was grateful my equipment was safely stowed so I could be present with life.

It was also the first night I had used only one piece of equipment. Usually, I have the SeeStar telescope imaging some galaxy or star cluster, my camera taking star trail images, and my iPhone on a little tripod taking images. All of this while ‘enjoying’ the beauty. And I absolutely love creating images…that’s my joy. But last night, I was trying a new piece of equipment I bought many months ago but hadn’t had an opportunity to use due to heavy cloud cover for so many months and then I’d forgotten how to assemble it and didn’t want to bother. 

But I bothered last night and I’m in awe of what adding a star tracker can do to increase exposure time for astrophotography. And let me just say this: I love to play with camera gear…under starlight, underwater, with waterfalls, forests, wildlife. I simply love to play. With cameras. And light. And shapes. And sparkly shiny beings light years away. But sometimes it’s magical to remember why I am so passionate about photography and just be bathed in the beauty I’m trying to capture and share.

Three of us gathered for the Leonid meteor shower, for fast-moving meteors and fireballs, debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Our viewing location is generally a madhouse of car lights but last night, we had it almost to ourselves. Peaceful, calm, cold and one fireball that was so amazing I yelled, Bravo!!, after its sparkling self evaporated above our heads. There were others…one incredibly fast faint one, other smaller ones, and one I didn’t see with my eyes but my camera captured it!

Even though there were clouds for a few hours, they added to the beauty of the images. I saw the clouds clearing, but it was getting colder and even with my cocoon of warm clothes, I knew my limit was approaching. As soon as I began disassembling the imaging equipment, the clouds finally gave way. I think their hanging around was my cue to put it all away and lay on Earth for grounding and communion with our planet and to open myself to the beauty of the firmament without distractions…except for the tingle moving up my spine from the cat call…which I swear was a mountain lion’s chirping call. We all heard it so it wasn’t my imagination. (It IS possible at the 5720 foot ‘remote’ location on the parkway…there have been paw print casts made from biologists years ago nearby…and it was not a bobcat).

As I was driving home, down the Blue Ridge Parkway, and then winding down Soco Road toward Cherokee, I thought…This was a great night to be alive! Stars, meteors, mountains…mountain lion? Just WOW!
At Home in the Stars

At Home in the Stars

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I used to say I felt more at home underwater than on dry land. Since I haven’t been diving in years, I now say I feel more at home under stars, gazing into the heavens, than I do during daylight hours wandering the planet. Both underwater places and the night sky are experiences of vast space.

Perhaps it’s the expansion of space that calms me. It is those times when I can expand my experience of life into the Infinite that call me into the cold nights of the mountains…where I can unfold and feel the touch of the Universe within my heart and know the immensity of my own soul and how it is part of Oneness.
The Door is Open

The Door is Open

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My hound often sits outside the pet door and barks to come inside….when the door has the solid panel removed. I’ll say, “Come on Vernon, the door is open!” And after a few minutes of thought, or something akin to thought, he comes through and climbs into his purple leather recliner. 

This morning, one of my cats did Vernon’s version of ‘the door is locked and I can’t get in.’ So I told her, “The door is open!” And she came inside.

This was an unusual behavior as Tawanda is super-smart (not saying Vernon isn’t super-smart…his nose is beyond intelligent). Any time something unusual happens, I stop and pay attention. Especially after the contemplation I had this morning.

I kept hearing: The door is open. Walk through! So I wrote it down and put the paper beside my computer. As I begin the work day, the paper kept staring at me and I remembered a story I shared at a book event this weekend.

I was hiking with a friend up Alum Cave trail to LeConte Lodge. There is a point where the trail flattens out after nearly five miles of climbing. The higher altitude forest opens up and it’s pure magic. Thick carpets of green moss, the smell of balsam fir, beautiful spruce and fir trees create a wonderland of beauty. On our way back from the lodge, I stopped and pulled out a flute and stood in the forest and said… ‘this is for you…thank you.’ 

As I played the melody, I felt my heart open and then a rush of energy move through me that brought me to tears. There was such connection with the forest. I felt it on a cellular level. 

As we hiked down, I contemplated the experience and realized the only thing keeping us from being in such profound harmony with life is ourselves. The forest is always there…open, strong, beautiful. We simply have to open our hearts to feel that Oneness.

In the book event with my friend and writer, Thomas Rain Crowe, I described the forest and flute moment and how I realized that the only thing keeping us from experiencing Oneness was ourselves. And the ‘fix’ is to open our hearts. 

To be in Oneness, to feel love and connection, we simply have to open ourselves. We’ve spent years building walls of protection and it was smart to do that when we were kids and trying to grow up and find our way. But as adults, those walls keep us from connecting. We can become addicted to adding to and stabilizing those walls, reinforcing them, to keep ourselves safe. But then, our world becomes smaller and scarier because we’re repeating our fears over and over. The way out of that fear cycle is to find ways to open again. For me, it’s with animals and forests…rivers, the night sky. When I dare to open my heart and listen to the forest, the rivers, wild animals and my own four-legged kiddos, I find I hear again and again, “The Door is open! Walk through!”

—

Misery is found in our self-created prison. 

We sit inside the cell and carve days into walls of stone

As the rusted, open door of iron bars silently waits.

A beam of light illuminates the opening

And we marvel at the beauty of it sparkling 

In the dungeon of our shadows.

It whispers, The Door is open. Walk through.

By the magic of grace, we walk through the open door

Of our heart and know freedom.

The Door is open. Walk through!
The Infinite

The Infinite

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Earlier this week, I gave myself an assignment to contemplate the Infinite…the Cosmic Soup…the Universe. All through the week, simply to envision pure, unlimited potential in my life.

Only a few days later, and the shift is amazing. Mostly due to getting circulating thoughts, that form neural grooves in my brain, halted and replaced with something bountiful and immense—the Infinite. 

I started by mentally listing possibilities in given circumstances and this helped me realize how limiting my thoughts really were, even the positive ones. In a given situation, I’d conjure up as many possibilities as I could think of and come up with only five or six…out of a Universe filled with possibilities. I’d laugh and then imagine the vast night sky or a massive cauldron of stars and planets and galaxies pouring onto me and filling me with massive potential.

The results have been amazing…unexpected money arriving, me advocating for a raise for myself in a new grant, musical creativity rising. But most important, a sense of openness to life, energy, and clarity has arisen within me. My entire body feels more electric, more alive.

M 51

It’s easy to become trapped in the physical manifestation of life; however, most of the ‘physical’ is space…energy vibrating. The form we see is the smallest result of the creative process. Imagine that for a moment. Everything we see with our eyes is just a fraction of what’s really there. Like the neural grooves that form in our brains from repetitive thoughts, our lives become smaller when we limit ourselves to the physical manifestation of the creative process.

To simplify, imagine that you are in outer space in a spaceship. Stars, planets, nebula extend in all directions endlessly, yet you only see the contents of the spaceship and don’t realize how vast the world really is. You limit yourself to a very small existence. 

So, how do we change our limiting thoughts? Imagine something more, but without limits. Whatever your process is, begin to contemplate the Infinite, or the Great Cosmic Soup as I call It. All possibilities, unlimited potential. This then is freeing the mind, a powerful tool, especially when combined with the energy of the heart. 

(Thanks, Pam Wooten, for the photograph)

It’s not about how the rest of the world sees me…or how the world sees you. It’s how we see ourselves. Are we limiting ourselves, seeing only the small spaceship? Or are we seeing the unlimited Universe? Are we willing to dip our ladle into the Cosmic Cauldron and drink from it? Or pour it over our heads, filling ourselves with boundless potential, unlimited possibilities.

Do I limit my world to inside my home? Or, do I step outside and see the beauty, that is Infinite?