trees love themselves and extend that knowing of love into their sense of all othernesses
in whatever form they may take.
i know this as loving kindness.
it's a pairing of words that bears reflection and consideration.
loving kindness.
loving kindness allows for the possibility of a state of care that is unconcerned
with like or dislike, right or wrong.
loving kindness is entirely present in the possibility that maybe, just maybe, everything, all things,
are features, perhaps even signs pointing to the process of love that emerges unimaginably
and without condition from a creative moment we express as "the creation".
the creation manifests in our own experiencing as a sort of creative infinitude that embraces the tiniest plankton, the most ancient joshua tree, the most beautiful sunset and everything in-between,
despite and other.
all are expressions of love.
the creation is an unfolding gift within which it is possible to refine the presence of the soul that in this incarnation manifests as the youness of you.
and so as i stand on a streetcorner (as i did this very day) and watch the sun break through clouds painted pale violet and the softest of sienna and (if you can imagine)
turning my head ever so slightly to look further south
i watch a frostbow form and see the colours that will become spring fall to the earth
i am keenly aware of the finite features of my bodies' life and then the ebb and flow of the seasons and the larger cycles of our planet which in turn sing of the orbiting of the worlds comprising our very tiny place in this universe which even as it becomes and fills the space in its plentitude is already aware of the necessity of its return to the essence of love from which it exploded.
please understand that the extraordinary and almost unbearably beautiful forms that i am so graced to share this place with leave me filled with the overwhelming compulsion and desire to share the deep feelings of gratitude and awe that i would wish to contain but whose ownership i cannot isolate and so as an echo of the unconditional loving kindness which they reflect, i choose to share them inside my emerging understanding here.
I feel a certain spiritual connection with trees, especially. I share your deep gratitude. Gorgeous post, Steven.
ReplyDeleteLoving kindness. I spent a whole week cultivating exactly that on retreat with my son just before beginning my blog, Mindful Heart. It is, I think, the subject of my very first post.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I, too am awestruck with trees. Their generosity and love seems boundless to me. I've wondered if they are at least in part the dendrites of the earth's intelligence.