And then, there were no more words. No need to speak about the state of the world or new discoveries in her evolution of consciousness. She sits, with a gentle head cold, watching the sun come over the redrock mesa, drinking lemon and baking soda in hot water. Resting in Being. Just resting.
Stillness holds her bones, her cells — even as they are busily responding to some tiny form of life inside that makes her body tired and her nose runny. Nothing wants to be done in this moment. Just sitting and feeling the immense vastness of right now.
This phenomena had been creeping up slowly, maybe for four or five years . . . the feeling of watching everything in her life and the world, and it feeling more and more unreal, like a never-ending movie. At first it had been alarming, like she was high all the time, disconnected from reality. Her brain felt funny. Paradoxically, it came along with a greater ability to feel her body, to more acutely sense in herself the sensations of changing emotions, of the subtle energies of other people, of what was happening in a group field. But then an esteemed friend of great presence and wisdom mentioned in an e-mail a similar experience of everything feeling unreal (and not just because of COVID, climate change and the unravelling of colonist culture as we have knows it).
Then one of her teachers named it — “Resting in Being. What is this world from the perspective of Being? Could that be what is happening?”
Last Easter, micro-dosing on LSD with friends in the desert, she very clearly experienced the Stillness within which everything was unfolding. Both the unchanging infinite stillness of Being, and simultaneously the dance of everything in the universe changing constantly in that space. It was a profoundly safe place — even beyond safe. She recognized it. It was deliciously home. It was ultimate Belonging. It was the true nature of things. It was this state that had been dawning in her, seemingly of its own accord.
Though she had read about this kind of thing for decades, and had a pretty good conceptual understanding of it, and made an unfailing habit of seeking it, she was extremely reticent to relax into it. Too much programing about her self-worth damned the way. But finally, having been recognized by another and named, she made the choice to seriously pay attention to the Stillness in her. She noticed it more often. She noticed it was actually there when she was alone, when she working, when she was arguing with a loved one, even when she was upset, and most especially in moments like now, watching the morning light grow over the land.
She began to recognize others from whom this Stillness emanated, and what it felt like to be with them. She was not separate, in this Stillness. Not separate from other people and from all creatures and plants and rocks and clouds and viruses and galaxies and everything, everything, everything.
This morning, it felt to her like resting after a very long and difficult journey; like arriving somewhere, some new place that certainly soon would beckon her on to new uncharted territories.
But for now, she only cared to Be. No more words.