It’s not just the people
who live in the city
who’ve lost the thread
that ties them to the woven
world of stones and earth,
fields alive with pollen and wings.
Who among us understands
how oceans rise and fall,
currents swirling around the planet
with messages in bottles
floating on the water.
When the tide is out
we can go to the shore
dig clay with our bare hands
and make something beautiful from it,
a vessel with thin walls
that holds a canyon.
In both hands, like an offering,
we can hold the memory
of eroded stones and earth,
eons contained in this empty bowl.
We can fill it with water
that reflects the sky that has
witnessed everything since
time began, we can drink and be blessed,
clouds gathering over us.
by Stuart Kestenbaum
I love the deep connectedness that this poem by the poet Stuart Kestenbaum invites us to remember, the images of the eons contained in an empty bowl, the sky that has witnessed everything since time began, reflected in the water. That sense of timeless hugeness – and then me in this moment on the beach with cold hands and a runny nose. The wonder of this moment existing in the endless stream of other moments, so totally insignificant in the bigness of time and space and yet – we can drink and be blessed, right here and now.
Mindfulness practice can invite us there, too… Attending to this breath, this moment of experience – totally ordinary and yet utterly miraculous as it’s here, it’s actually happening. How does this awareness influence your encounters with others? the way you sip your tea? the way you surrender to sleep tonight? How can we live fully, deeply, wholly? Much of the day may be getting through what needs to be done, but if we can speckle it with moments of wonder and deep interconnectedness, we can align ourselves with meaning and purpose that’s deeply fulfilling. Let’s look out for that!
PS. If you’d like to embark on a journey to find more of those moments, there’s a new Level 1 course just about to start!
Photo by Alex Grodkiewicz on Unsplash
