ALERT STILLNESS

[Continuing] 

The present one

Fear of the unknown, does it not at times stir us to deny the unknown…? Plato said, avoid the pretense of wisdom [of knowing.]

A God we already know much about, is a God we do not necessarily need to have with us. The present one is unnecessary, unwelcomed by the wise.

[Note from The Spiral-Bound notebook]

Whatever he thought, it was. Out on the quiet waters, surrounded by morning mist, he entered it as prayer.

Being was effortless, no news to anyone. In through the nose it comes with life, and if not – no life, no thought or anything thinkable. Even unthinkable.

Anyone present, maybe watching from the shoreline or flying overhead, would see him at intervals paddling the kayak, then letting it glide for long stretches at a time while he sat perfectly still, hands on his lap, his eyes closed.

Clouds of thoughts and thoughts of clouds stir through the air. They are strewn, they are swollen and gray at times, they cry their tears for only a moment making their spring drip drop first on the dock, then upon all the surface of the waters.

You might extend yourself and reach to enter and know the sense of its reality from within your own blood and bones and hands and feet.

So you would wait and breathe more allowing the current to take the craft with you inside it right along on the breezes, counting ripples on the water, readjusting your Cabelas fishing cap.

There in your place you first dreamt of only now you rest.

You give yourself completely to the presence of the Cardinals chasing one another through the treetops. You gaze and breathe, your heart lying open to the source, Love Alive, the fountain of life and you only know this through your senses in glimpses; a glimmering patchwork of light through the trees at the surface here or their, the hawk spun sunward through the dune grass, and yes, the lawnmower, the faintest trace of a semi hollering down the interstate a good 20 miles away.

You give yourself to the knowing of the present one; gazing, breathing, as would a lover between kisses.

You practice alert stillness. Presence to presence. The world is alive. You are alive within it.

You see yourself already speaking to a group about communion… Not thinking about it…

Experiencing it as fully as you are able as an embodied creature.

The animal breathes beneath their naval… utterly without thought… and stays and stays… and who is the most brilliant? The one who creates the sensual doorways into the ineffable reverberations of creaturely ecstasy or the one who provides so abundantly that which craves and is inherently so needful of being known, seen, smelled, touched and tasted?

A scattering of sparrows giggle from brush to brush at the waters edge.

Let there be a garden.

Looking deeply into every aspect of life, the world around us becomes an apparent Eden.

You touch the water and bring it to your lips.

A bright glare of Golden feather shoots out from a stand of dead red pine across the lake.

You search with your binoculars the far shoreline and set a goal for yourself and get paddling toward it. The cold air surges through your lungs and as your heart rate thumps harder you can feel the surge of power promised by the purveyors of prednisone and your old friend Anthony. You press yourself forward to paddle even a little faster and the energy is feeling fantastic. You feel an occasional splash on your forearms and face.

Maybe an Eagles nest, let’s find out.

As you reach the midway point of this fairly large lake there is a sense of smallness to your being that suddenly grips your abdominals with an uncomfortable twist of fear. The waters beneath you must be so deep and so cold.

The wind blows and the chop is becoming noticeably higher. And there are things you know and remember very suddenly.

I still have to get all the way back. Am I shifting to the left from all of this paddling with gusto? I think I'm shifting.

This is not the place to tip over.