Music of the Spheres
I walked up the rocky hill in blackness. Only a dimmed light pointed at my feet kept me on the path. In the distance I could hear the Atlantic Ocean pounding the cliffs. Rabbits skittered out of the way and cows appeared from the inky night, barely illuminated by the muted light. I was alone, but not really.
The trail was wet and slippery as I neared the arch in the rock wall. I paused to request permission to enter the 5000 year old stone fort and felt no resistance to my being there. I turned off the faint light, walked through the threshold, and felt myself enter a different dimension, one ruled by elemental beings.
The inner circle whispered a welcome, so I walked through the lush grass and found a place to lay down in the center. The only human-created light was a buoy offshore that warned of the cliffs. Dark sky magic weaved me into its spell. But it wasn’t just the stars and planets overhead that awed me, it was everything: Earth Mother anchoring me, wild wind, waves pounding the cliff, and fire of the stars.
As I rested on my back, I felt the reverberation of the ocean through the ground as it shook the bluff. It was as if every blade of grass was vibrating the story of the sea as it embraced the shore of Inis Mor, Ireland. Sky and Earth spiraled through me as I opened to the beauty.
Old metal fence pipes, with holes drilled into them, became flutes for the wind as they stood as sentinels just outside the fort. We are like those ‘flutes,’ available to be instruments of love and light if we simply open and avail ourselves to light, to love, to the Music of the Spheres.
I think Pythagoras had it right when he said the movements of the celestial bodies create a divine, inaudible harmony. The only thing I disagree with is the inaudible part. For times like this morning, when I was reclined under the late night/pre-dawn sky here in the Smoky Mountains, I hear that harmony as it arises within me as a reflection from the heavens.
Remember the Light
When you gaze into the clear night sky, the perception is there is darkness and only pinpoints of light. But when you take photographs of the night sky, a fundamental truth is revealed: It’s mostly light. So much light!
I regularly set up my tripod and camera and program my remote to continuously fire 10 to 20 second shots until my battery runs out, I’m too cold to continue, or clouds arrive. By doing this with the correct exposure, I capture the rotation of the Earth. It appears as star trails…and planet trails…when I stack those images in Photoshop. Streams of light are the reality!
Even though life can seem really dark, when we look closely those pinpoints of light, glowing in so many hearts, they become like fireworks of love all over the planet.
When I stand under the firmament and gaze into the heavens, my life is changed for the better. Every. Single. Time.
Don’t think that because it looks dark, all is lost. Light is growing and continues to grow as we open our hearts and allow our lights to shine.
The Door is Open
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 Grating Expanse of Stillness
I set my alarm for 4.30am so I could go hike my favorite trail today. I had mixed feelings because it’s busy on a regular summer day, but the 4th of July weekend…I wasn’t sure.
Then, I woke up at 1.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so turned off the alarm and decided if I woke up early enough to get a parking space, I’d go and if not, I’d just stay home and skip the stress of the throngs of people.
I finally went back to sleep and slept until 6.09am, about the time I needed to be pulling into a parking space at the trail head. Whatever. I didn’t want to be around a ga-zillon people anyway and drive through the park with the insanity of traffic on this busy weekend.
But I miss the trail and miss the full day it takes to hike it….considering the day starts at 4.30 when I wake and then the hour long drive to the trail head, the 3 hours up and 2.5 hours down and then trying to pull out on the highway that runs through the park and the inevitable stoppage of traffic if someone takes a curve too fast. Two…three hours waiting for wreckers, rangers, and ambulances isn’t that unusual. So…gardening for me today.
I’m an active person who finds hiking in these mountains a wonderful way to engage with Nature and burn off my inner crazy. Stillness isn’t easy for me…at least on a meditation cushion.
I enjoy stillness through yoga…a sort of moving stillness that is at the same time grounding and expansive. But perhaps my most still moments are when I’m hiking the steep trails through upper elevation forests of fir and spruce trees. I’m physically exerting myself significantly, yet the trees and rocks and moss ground me deeply into their place so I can soar.
Traditionally we think of stillness as sitting and ‘doing nothing’ and letting our mind still. My mind is at its stillest point when I am in Nature, connecting viscerally with everything around me. That’s when everything aligns and calms within me. But sit me on a cushion and tell me to be still and silent and my mind screams at the grating expanse of stillness.