Connectivity of Now

"We cannot set limits on the versatility of nature; the limitations are in us."
Elsa-Brita Titchenell

So I’m working out my own limitations- around a map to support my nature without limits.

My nature is such that I need really good clean fresh food, exercise, mental and emotional stimulation and support… but there is this other less tangible thing…I need to feel connected to the bigger story. In mapping this, my mind keeps returning to the power of the present or ever expanding NOW.

There is a unifying current running through the now that transcends the fractioning stories of self.
One recent morning I walked into the kitchen where Ron was standing at the sink doing the dishes. Something cued me into the fact he was not in a normal state of mind, so I asked him; what was up? “They are dirty, then they are clean,” he told me holding the dish up to the sunlight in wonder. I had to smile at his enviable dish-bliss. Ron was not feeling bad about the usual suspects; money, someone else’s opinion, or his never ending to-do list, he just allowed himself to see and feel the beauty and even the renewability of dishes being dirty, then being clean. And he slipped quietly, joyfully into the simple bliss of knowing that in this moment life worked.

But Ron’s had some practice. He has built some containers so when the moment expands he can meet it.

Once in the middle of Nordstrom’s with our friend Debra, Ron and I fell into the now. It was a special event where early one morning, women came by appointment to meet with professional make-up artists. A piano was being played live, the women and artists were all into the art of being beautiful. Ron and I stood on the side just arms around each other enjoying the music. The quality of light shifted to a soft shimmer. We could feel the perfection and weave of every movement in the crowded room. There was a vibrant current flowing through it all. Ron and I moved the center of the hive where we found Debra and enfolded her into the wave. The guy working with her slipped in too. As the music played there was a giddy mischievousness matched with pure business flowing like sparkling Champagne moving out from where we were at the center into the store in waves. The energy sustained regenerating and full, we lingered forever... until it began to subside, then off to our day.

At first one might be aware of body, temperature, and breath, then noises like conversations, music, traffic, breeze, then there are subtler energies. The energy of the person next to you and the person beside them, following awareness out in concentric circles like ripples on the pond, never losing track of self always at center. It takes some practice but then again it might just find you. When it does, meet it, greet it,.. see where it takes you.