Living on the Edge

Living on the Edge, Ko'olau Ridgeline, Kamananui Trail Summit, HI, March 2019, iPhone 11 Pro © Steven Crisp

Living on the Edge

What if Reality is that we are living on the edge?  The edge of what?

Right on the edge of an epic cliff, the pinnacle of a mythic mountain,
Or perhaps the mysterious precipice of the Here and Now
Looking over the edge, we cannot even see the bottom
It’s occluded by the clouded thinking of our minds

Can you sense that, in your body?  Yeah, I'm feeling a little vertigo, a little bit woozy
Exactly.  That’s what I’m talking about.  You’re tuning into it.
Your body knows something that your mind has chosen to ignore
Or is simply unwilling to recognize or acknowledge or process
And this is difficult to capture in words -- you have to feel your way

Indeed, language is both a pathway and a boundary between us.  Say what?
Life is always about the whole of it … the totality and nothing … that is, No Thing
So that’s a little taste of Living on the Edge … a reframing of you ... if you will
It requires a bit of a shift from your rational mind toward your intuitive sense
But try not to get lost in the language; words can only be a pointer, they’re not the point

Tell me, when did Creation occur?  Uhh,  I don’t know … about 14 billion years ago?
That’s just the Big Bang; I’m asking about Creation itself
Isn’t Creation happening this very moment?  Indeed, only in this moment?
In fact, isn't that knife-edge precipice the very place where Life lives us?
The exhilaration of birthing this very universe, in the eternal Now

You are both an insignificant speck of stardust and a magical note in this universal symphony 
Without you, this world would not exist … think about that … or rather, feel that and be that
Look deeply enough at anything in Nature and you will see it shimmer with Life’s creative energy
You are that very same creative energy … that inexhaustible, infinite potential
It’s coursing through your veins and thriving in the trillions of cells that constitute your body-mind

That creative energy is pumping every heartbeat, which races faster as you inch closer to that edge
Don’t worry!  You cannot fall from this edge, but you can leap, and if you’re willing, soar
Above the clouds of us vs. them, of right and wrong, of judgment and even preference itself
Every present moment of awareness opens up new pathways into fresh insights
Loosening the grip of old habits and patterned reactivity, while healing inner wounds

Isn’t this the place you’d want to live, every day, every moment?  Yeah, I think so
Trust me, thinking won’t get you there … indeed, simply let the mind quiet into stillness and peace
Sit with me, won’t you?  Right Here, Right Now.  Sure, why not ... I'd love to
Let us weave ourselves together into the emerging tapestry of this very moment

Words are not required.  Let’s just feel our hearts beating together, as one.  Can you feel that?  Oh Yes!

The Presentation of Your Mind

 

Java Sparrows or "Birds?", Kailua, HI, January 2019, Nikon D600, FX 28-300mm

 VR lens, 300mm,1/60 sec @ f5.6, ISO 400, -1.67 EV, no flash © Steven Crisp

The Presentation of Your Mind

Your mind is a tricky thing

Making you believe things to be true

Even when they make no sense at all

Perhaps you’ve realized that by now

Like that mysterious work presentation

You are due to give later this week

Yet you haven’t even studied the topic

While you reassure your boss you’re ready

But there are glimpses of the awakening truth

You even say to yourself, “It’s not really due”

And so you relax, smile, and return to your slumber

Only to find an audience waiting in your dreamworld

Ha-ha, as if dreams were your only trickster

Truth be told, your waking world is too clever by half

For when we glance at that yellow oleander in the garden

Shimmering in the setting sun after a light rainfall

All that our mind tells us we see is a “tree”

But it is most certainly not that; if anything,

It’s a dance of light, a mesmerizing joy,

A singing bowl of birds, and aptly named “Be-Still”

We’re fortunate though, since we stand on shoulders that tell us

About left and right cerebral hemispheres, and the corpus callosum,

Connecting nerve fibers, that permit and inhibit transmissions

It is evolution that has brought about this draw-bridge in our mind

To keep us alive, at least long enough to continue our

Ancestral lineage, indeed, because we are so quick to judge

But if we are really lucky, we feel some strange pull ... an intuition

To look deeper, beyond features and categories and groups

We recognize the tug to understand something more

Beyond the reductionist, so-called, material world

We can catch glimpses of aliveness itself, that effervescence

Always bubbling up, in, through, and all around

Things are not the labels we ascribe to them, nor are people

Indeed nothing exists that can be studied in isolation

Everything is truly interdependent and arising …

Fresh and new, in this very moment, if we will only truly see

How can it be we see the multiplicity and yet

Somehow we can also glimpse the wholeness of life?

See the totality unfolding in this precious moment

As morning dawns and its singing bowl reverberates

What a gift to see each moment with fresh eyes

With that child-like wonder and utter astonishment

Every sense can come alive in this very moment

An open heart, welcoming Life, that’s living you