It's All In The Perspective

I'm back, I hoped I would be back and I AM.

The thought floated up yesterday morning as I was brushing my teeth, "Was I still falling or if I wasn't falling anymore, where had I landed, where was I?" Then it happened, the shift. This experience of the shift happens more and more...I was sharing with a friend this morning that I often have these experiences while brushing my teeth! I am aware that the intuitive mind is free and I perceive something quite different than with the analytical mind. My friend said that in an interview Maya Angelou speaks of the small mind/big mind and her observation that when the small mind is occupied with a rote task, (just like throwing a dog a bone), than the big mind is free to explore. As part of her writing process, Maya checks herself into a hotel room and spends all day playing solitaire and writing. While she plays cards, the ideas flow and then she stops and writes. Well, mine is brushing my teeth...though, I haven't started brushing my teeth and THEN writing, nothing so intentional, hmhmhm...I must give this some thought!
Ah, the rambling again, I still have yet to tell what the realization was, the ah ha! As a budding writer, I am aware of increasing the suspense, like a great detective novel, knowing the reader is hanging on every word! At this point, it is far more likely that one hasn't remember where the heck this started, but I trust reading a been a pleasant journey! Ok, here we go...just like those shows about transformation: THE BIG REVEAL. Here was the realization and it was as I have experienced again and again with realizations, an "expected" surprise. I love this phrase and I have experienced this time and again the last several years; knowing what I know, experiencing the truth of something that previously was upsetting, or causing suffering or fear. The realization was that "YES" I was still falling and the voice said, "there is only falling, only change and chaos, there is no landing" and then... "bing" the perspective shifted and the view changed from vertical-falling to horizontal-flowing. Just like that, everything changed in that moment and there was a sense of calm and peace and the small mind/big mind were for a moment, just that moment, having the same experience. I am familiar with falling, but I am also familiar with flowing and the truth is "flowing" doesn't leave; it doesn't go away, it is always there and infinite and eternal. And in that moment of being back in the flowing, the river of life, there was a deep and profound sense of peace. My hunch is I will fall again and again and again, but this awareness, this bell will not be unrung. There is the knowing that this sense of falling, this fear, this suffering is contained in the river, the bedrock, the earth and I will flow with the fall and fall into the flow.

PostScript: May you find your "dog bone" today for the small mind and let the big mind; the intuitive mind, free to discover and explore new perceptions, ah yes, New Perspectives. Second PostScript: I am off to "brush my teeth!" Stay tuned! Third PostScript: Actually, I will be on a five day silent retreat beginning this evening until Friday afternoon... So, stay tuned for the week of the 14th...when I will really return from brushing my teeth!