River Of Life

I have felt the tick of the clock and ebb and flow of time off an on throughout my life. I am unsure if this is something that others feel periodically or if it is something that I have created in my own imagination – but, either way, I know that off and on I have been privy to that unseen flow that forms the foundation for existence. Not just the existence we know as life and our lifetime but something more, something that weaves across space and time a fabric – unseen yet controlling, which is itself that living force that propels all things in all times and places to a rhythm that becomes reality.

Within this unseen tick, I have been witness to the universal functioning of existence – if but for a brief moment. I now understand that the difference between this moment, enriched by all of the sensory information provided by the matrix of existence, and the next is only a function of the viewer. Consider, at this moment in time and space as I relish the peace and tranquility of a May morning in the Midwest – surrounded by the activities of the birds, squirrels, and myriad of other organisms that share this place; bathed in the light of the morning sun and cool-humid breeze on my cheek … all across time and space others are at this same tick immersed in a reality that they understand as “reality” and filled with an untold variety of stimuli and circumstance. What then is reality, who is experiencing the true “world”, who is right? I believe that we all feel, at one time or another, that the world as we see it is the world of reality and that the others (and for most humans, I believe that “others” is interpreted as other people) around us are somehow playing in and an integral part of our reality. If this is the case – how could it be the case? If you are part of my reality, how then can I be a part of yours in the same way you are a part of mine. Who’s reality is the real reality, HHHH. You see the dilemma. The only answer then is that neither your or my reality is the real reality and that the living we experience each day is somehow a part of the one true reality to which, for the most part, we are flowing through without actually being aware of that fact.

As a confirmation of the existence of this undercurrent fabric of time and space that forms the reality matrix to which all places and all times are linked I will use as a metaphor the image seen here. It brings back a time in my life when a portal opened and for a brief time I experienced that wider view that gives one a glimpse into that other place. The time I am remembering was a winter in the late 1970s and the occasion was a trip to the Florida Keys over the then Christmas break from school and work. The purpose of that trip and I was only a visitor in terms of that purpose, was for a friend to catch and bring back some exotic tropical fish for his newly build a salt-water aquarium. My friend was always one with plans and ideas that were bigger than his ability to accomplish them, HHH. Anyway – during one of our oceanic adventures we came near to the edge of the Gulf Stream, that river of water within the expanse of the oceans basin that flows from continent to continent in a great circle propelled by the motion of the earth’s rotation. One will remember that the Gulf Stream 300 years prior was the highway of the ocean that mariners used, along with a knowledge of the prevailing winds, to circumnavigate the ocean and explore new worlds. At any rate, during this trip and being in proximity of this colossal current I zoomed out for a time to that place from which one can see the world and living as a spectator rather than a participant … sort of like the image of the Gulf Stream from space in the image above. With this perspective one is jerked from that limited reality we normally experience as our daily living and placed in a position to look upon the world as it is at that moment and the life it supports in much the way one would watch a show or play. This removed observer position also breaks the flow of conscious thought that undergirds the daily routine and gives one both perspective and position to look at things in a different way. To observe rather than participate. In those few moments if one allows their thoughts to become free of the expected conventions that formulate one’s life a view, well a feeling at least, of the actual reality that binds all things and all times together can be sensed … this sensation is that feeling of hugeness that one sometimes feels when we are presented with an event or place that is larger than anything we can imagine. Like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon at sunrise for the first time … or that largeness that one felt as the events of the Kennedy assassination unfolded in real-time. These types of places and events are so out of the realm of typical thought and sensation that they break the bonds that enclose our thoughts and senses into the confined space of our own lifetime and give use space to raise our eyes from the path and look past the horizon.

###