Photo courtesy of: ‘Spacious Sound’ by Wounds and Cracks – Pixabay
https://tinyurl.com/yca2klj7
In class today… a student was having some difficulty with the invitation to… ‘Dive Into Time’, to question the status and identity of our emerging (various) ‘selves’, as we observe moments passing… The student asked, “How do I look into a memory, and then look at the future of that past moment? How do I drop the assumption of a solid and continuous personal identity?â€
I remembered working with memories, discovering they were NOT fixed, but little summary thoughts and images I sped through on my compulsive way to viewing the next series of thoughts and images. I noticed when dwelling within a memory, I was doing it in the present moment, looking into flashes of its presenting. Spaces and gaps (spots of not-known), also appeared along with the images… but when I focused on those gaps and spaces (spots of not-known), they opened up, giving up more and more of the remembrance. That ‘opening’ was widening the present perspective on a past memory, and there was way more there than I simply assumed than a mere frozen snapshot of the past. Going into the gaps is how I opened the past AND the future of moments… I just had to maintain calm, and be patient and welcoming, as space allows time to reveal…
Ken’s poem reminded me, how looking into the gaps and spaces allows more and more to arise from abiding in ‘shadowy illumination’…
SEEDING
by Ken McKeon
Placed by my ignorance under a hat of rain,
I trudged off to the one dry
Corner of my mind,
Sat down there
Beneath a gracious note,
And found myself within its spacious sound.
I would wait for the inside sky to clear,
I would find my heart,
And as I did,
Mind eased,
Body stopped
Clamoring for food, for air,
And tongue lifted to mouth roof,
Light touch, touch of lightness,
Spreading light, moist light,
Soft light, strongly easing light,
It is a sun filled realm
Of shadowy illumination,
Droplet rainbow wondrous clarity,
It manifests as a struck bell,
It manifests as
Hum.
