While hovering over a coral reef in the Caribbean, I spot a blenny. The small fish, perhaps an inch long with eyes the size of a pin head, makes eye contact. In the Sea of Cortez, hovering over a rocky outcrop a juvenile puffer fish, also very tiny in size, approaches my mask and makes eye contact. No matter the size of the species, it always feels as if a real connection of some sort is made when eyes of one connects with eyes of another.
One of the most satisfying experiences enjoyed in my life is making eye contact with wild animals. Perhaps not all wild animals would accept it as a peaceful action but those who choose to interact with me like this help me to feel accepted into that other’s life, if only for a moment.
While interacting with a juvenile humpback whale, there was definitely eye contact. Considering the cetacean was over 15 feet in length, she wasn’t the one intimidated. I offered a quiet mind and peaceful heart to this sister and the encounter changed my life. Maybe it changed her for the better in some way, too.
And manatees…they seem to love making goo-goo eyes with me or my camera housing dome port. (Perhaps they are really making goo-goo eyes with the manatee they see reflected in the port). I like to think that when we make eye contact with others…be it wildlife, our domestic non-human friends or even humans…we are making an agreement to connect.
Sampson, a bobcat that lives indoors in a wildlife rescue center after being surrendered by a human who declawed him and kept him illegally as a pet.
It has been said the eyes are the window of the soul. That’s how I gauge if someone is ‘home’ in their body. It’s how I communicate with other species and with other humans. There is much to learn from looking into another’s eyes.
Cathe Steel & Will Kimbrough
What about you? Are you willing to take the risk to make eye contact?
Or will you live with blinders, refusing to connect with others around you?
The sand is cold from a night of darkness. Starlight is still embedded in the crystalline grains. It lingers as the gathering orange orb peeks from behind dark, gray clouds. Lunar fullness…madness… seeps into my bare feet as I walk along the shore, chilled from a wintery morning.
The pre-dawn excursion gave me time and space to freely open to the creative impulse working within and through me. I came away with a synthesis of revelations of late.
Recently, in my morning meditations, I have asked for one-sentence seeds of wisdom to begin the day. Yesterday it was this:
Throughout the day I contemplated this statement and felt a deeper opening in my heart…and a Buddhist story came to mind. It goes something like this…
An abbot of a monastery sought a replacement. The test given to monks who applied for the position was to stand against hungry ghosts…legions of them. Bravery, courage and wisdom was needed. One by one, they were defeated as they wielded weapons and used defensive maneuvers. Finally, a monk calmly stood ready to face the test. Rather than hold weapons or stand in a defensive posture, the monk remained calmed and opened himself, allowing all the hungry ghosts to pass straight through. By not holding on or clinging to defensiveness, he passed the test and thus possessed the wisdom to become the new abbot.
It’s possible, while trying to maintain an open heart, to become defensive and protective of it as there will be those who are threatened by such joy, such happiness and they will make attempts to put down the light being emitted. Yet those ‘hungry ghosts’ have nothing on which to attach if we remain open, undefended, allowing pure joy and love to flow through.
As Pema Chodron wrote, “To experience something that liberates us from the narrow minded-ness of our biases and preconceptions is truly wondrous.”
“Don’t worry about results; just open your heart in an inconceivably big way, in that limitless way that benefits everyone you encounter,” wrote Chodron. Yesterday’s meditation included a vision where I climbed through a castle onto the top of it and went on the high roof. As I stood in the winds of this sacred place I saw a light approaching from the distance and heard a deep voice in my mind. Light the beacon, stay open, I am coming. So in the vision I took a torch and lit a huge light and knew that in reality I was lighting my heart’s light..and it would be my task to keep that sacred light burning brightly. There was no other task necessary.
Doobie and Bucket understand the value of basking in the sun…it’s where most of their wisdom is gleaned.
Yesterday at The Frog Pond Sunday Social, a gathering of musicians and music-lovers who come together to create community, I basked in the winter sun as the musicians warmed up. As I faced the sun and closed my eyes I reflected back to the meditative vision and allowed the light of my heart to meet that of the sun and heard the deep voice in my mind once again….stay open.
After over half-a-century of exploring what love is and more specifically what it is not…I have come to realize that love is the only ‘thing’ that matters. It’s not romantic love or sexual love…although that can be an expression of it…it’s the stuff that comes from having an open heart that breathes-in love, exhales love and in the middle finds a way to experience sheer joy and compassion just for the experience. That’s what I’ve gotten to thus far.
This is the face of pure joy, pure happiness….this then is the face of love.
And this is the face of love……
“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. Your world seems less solid, more roomy and spacious. The burden lightens. In the beginning it might feel like sadness or a shaky feeling, accompanied by a lot of fear, but your willingness to feel the fear, to make fear your companion, is growing. You’re willing to get to know yourself at this deep level. After awhile this same feeling begins to turn into a longing to raze all the walls, a longing to be fully human and to live in your world without always having to shut down and close off when certain things come along. It begins to turn into a longing to be there for your friends when they’re in trouble, to be of real help to this poor, aching planet. Curiously enough, along with this longing and this sadness and this tenderness, there’s an immense sense of well-being, unconditional well-being, which doesn’t have anything to do with pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, hope or fear, disgrace or fame. It’s something that simply comes to you when you feel that you can keep your heart open.” Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are.
Opening concert of the Frog Pond season and the torrential rainfall, the flash floods, the get-out-your-waders event simply didn’t happen, at least not in Silverhill, Alabama. Where there’s good juju perhaps the storms stay away just long enough for friends to come together after a long summer break to celebrate music, life and all things good.
Willie Sugarcapps opened the season and it seemed especially potent given that it is the group’s birthplace. This group is an example of the kind of magic that happens on the back porch stage at Blue Moon Farm.
Reconnecting with friends, with the music we all love, is a wondrous thing. But it goes beyond that. It’s as if the land itself welcomed us all back…the musicians and music-lovers so the spirit of community was sparkling and evident by smiles, hugs, singing coming from under the tent. We had a revival all right…a revival of the love of music and each other.
If you don’t go, you just won’t know….how sweet the spirit of friendship and the common love of music creates a place of happiness and joy. Witnessing the coming together of musicians sharing new songs, performing them for the first time together, shows us all the potent creative process in action. A lesson not to be ignored.
On a personal note, there’s sometimes a song that goes straight to my heart and creates an opening. Sometimes we all need reminding of the light within….or the star within. Thanks Brother Will…and all the members of Willie Sugarcapps for bringing their hearts and creative spirits to the Frog Pond. You all show us magic in action. And to Cathe Steel…you provide a container for this magic to happen. So thanks for stirring the cauldron of creativity and inviting us all to witness the beauty.
While hovering over a coral reef in the Caribbean, I spot a blenny. The small fish, perhaps an inch long with eyes the size of a pin head, makes eye contact. In the Sea of Cortez, hovering over a rocky outcrop a juvenile puffer fish, also very tiny in size, approaches my mask and makes eye contact. No matter the size of the species, it always feels as if a real connection of some sort is made when eyes of one connects with eyes of another.
One of the most satisfying experiences enjoyed in my life is making eye contact with wild animals. Perhaps not all wild animals would accept it as a peaceful action but those who choose to interact with me like this help me to feel accepted into that other’s life, if only for a moment.
While interacting with a juvenile humpback whale, there was definitely eye contact. Considering the cetacean was over 15 feet in length, she wasn’t the one intimidated. I offered a quiet mind and peaceful heart to this sister and the encounter changed my life. Maybe it changed her for the better in some way, too.
And manatees…they seem to love making goo-goo eyes with me or my camera housing dome port. (Perhaps they are really making goo-goo eyes with the manatee they see reflected in the port). I like to think that when we make eye contact with others…be it wildlife, our domestic non-human friends or even humans…we are making an agreement to connect.
Or will you live with blinders, refusing to connect with others around you?
