When I was seven I taught myself to consciously record my experiences within the cells of my body. I remember one time vividly. I was sitting at the dining room table with my whole family, all eight of us. I sat opposite of an old glass window. It had one of those panes that appears to be flowing over itself, like water. Solid glass which was ripply like a frozen river. I sat in my chair and put my fork down. Then I pretended I was a camera and a cat at the same time. (Kids can easily be several things at once.) I let the image of the scene outside the window seep into my brain and then filter down into my whole body. When the image was in me I would close my eyes slowly like a camera shutter. And I'd blink with the pace and ease of a cat with lovey dovey eyes. Slow and easy.
I remember my step father catching me in my experiment of integrating the outer with the inner. He gave me one of those befuddled stares. Everyone was talking, and I was just sitting there slowly opening and closing my eyes. "What the hell are you doing?" he said to me. But I was dreamy. I just stayed quiet. How can a seven year old explain such advanced stuff to a mere adult?
Little did I know, that not only the image was steeped into me, but also all the other senses came alive inside too. The body-mind is such an exquisite instrument for memory and Re-Membering. What I saw became a part of me consciously. Unlike the trauma I'd stored in my body out of fear, I'd moved this experience in with intention and care. I just wanted the experience of being that tree and little house just outside our window. Then I became the whole scene. Just by being a cat and a camera. Just by being a kid in love with the sultry light of a Southern California evening. It's all still alive.
Try being a kid like this in your own space. I guarantee it works just a well as an adult. And it brings a smile up from the core of all the chakras. Be a cat slowly blinking and a camera of the spirit that longs to be one with an unsullied creation. And when the critical step-father (inner or outer) asks "What the hell....?" , just smile softly and enjoy being quiet in response.
All the places I've loved.
They are still there,
inhabiting their experience.
I can visit them all when I am still.
All the people I've loved,
they are still there, in this moment.
Some are transposed.
Some are lost within their sacred ordinariness,
experiencing their experience.
I can visit them all!
Time, place, circumstance are all a spiral of the spirit.
The way home to the beloved is close, very close.
It is just across the folds of the universe.
I bring the realities of all these into the basket of my heart.
Sweetness.
No death,
No time in a line.
Moments of forever and ever.
Rick
(c) Copyright (Image and Text) Richard Sievers, All Rights Reserved, 2014