Nature
I walked up the mountain trail this evening. The sun has just set and mists were rising from the ocean blurring the sharp edges of stones, softening contours of blackened branches. The light was pearly and luminous and the mountains were silent.
I walked up the path, with a solid wall of rock on one side. the rock was scarred and hacked into ridges, sharp angels and empty holes. There was a shelf, formed close to the ground, filled with dried leafs. “Perfect for me to lie on”, I thought, or rather my body felt, but I kept on walking.
Farther up the trail there were three large boulders, sitting side by side. I looked at them and thought of sitting at one, touching the others with my hands. A nearby wall, made of cement or other man-made material, brought up no such urge when I looked at it, and I knew why I wanted to sit on the rocks.
It happened to me once before, when a tree wanted to talk to me. I was passing a tall pine tree when the urge came to sit down under it. This was the same urge, I realized, and I sat on the rock.
I became the mountain, immediately, I became the rock and nature, and myself. I was everything around me, present the way the mountains are present.
I felt the rocks, not separate pieces of stone with sharp, defined edges but as they really are – beyond form, beyond separation, beyond the categories of time and the distinctions of space. They are unlimited and timeless. They are not of this earth, not contained by the earth, nor confined to it. They ARE, and they are present as rocks.
I felt the mountains unlimited, boundless, without beginning and with no end. Beings that are not their form – they are present as their form.
I saw that and realized that the mountain was teaching me. It was teaching me how to be who I am here on earth. Not a human, not a woman, not this body – but present as a human woman in this body.
Not a human at all. Present as a human – but unlimited, boundless, endless. Present in this body – but God.
On Monday, in Shtokholm, three American scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Their research explains a significant aspect of the process our cells undergo as they age and die.
The long, thread-like DNA molecules that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes, the telomeres are the caps on their ends. A unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation during the cell’s duplication process. With each duplication telomeres are shortened, causing the cell to age and, eventually, to die.
Telomerase is an enzyme that makes telomere. It’s activity is high at the beginning of cell’s life, then, as the body ages, telomerase becomes less and less active. Eventually telomerase stops recreating the telomeres, telomeres disappear completely, and the body dies.
This process is true for all cells in our body, save for one kind. In this one kind of cells telomerase’s activity always remains high, telomere length is always maintained, and the death of the cell is delayed indefinitely. Those cells are immortal. They do not age, they do not die.
Those cells are the cancer cells.
I read an article explaining this research and it made me wonder … with the quest for immortality, with the terror and denial of death, with developing technology that keeps the body alive for as long as possible, with the intense drive to always be young, to never change, to never die … what is it that we are really doing?
The only immortal cells in our bodies are cancer.
It does makes me wonder…
I walked in the mountains yesterday. There is a trail winding it’s way up a mountain side. It splits at one point, a path goes on, following the mountainside into a valley, another leads up to the very mountain top. I wanted to stand at the top of the world yesterday, so I climbed up. The way up is steep and I was out of breath in no time, paying attention to nothing but my burning legs, my hammering heart, my lungs that were about to burst, and the annoying little flies trying to dive into my eyes with great determination.
My dog did not like the path, she kept falling back, stopping, I had to drag her forward.
“There is a mountain lion here” I realized half way up the slope. I couldn’t see it but it’s presence was as clear and strong as if it was standing right next to me. I kept on climbing, I wanted to see the view from the top.
It took me few minutes to catch my breath. There were mountains stretching down below me towards the valley where the city lies, tinkling with lights, and the ocean beyond it. The sun had just set leaving the sky a luminous shade of lavender and pink.
I stood at the top of the mountain and felt the mountain lion’s presence. It was it’s territory, I knew. And what if it shows up? I thought of scaring it away, of yelling on top of my voice, weaving my hands, shaking sticks. I heard that this is the appropriate response in case of meeting a dangerous wild animal.
“Nonsense” it occurred to me “why should I attack the lion? this is it’s place, why would I challenge that? I have no quarrel with the lion. If it comes and wants me gone, I will leave”.
The lion didn’t come and I walked away after a while. The sky darkened, the mountain path was full of shadows, the night was falling. My dog was scarred, skittish, starting at the slightest noise, but I was not afraid. I belonged there, in the wild, in the mountains, with the trees and the birds, with rocks and mountain lions.
“I am nature, just like the trees, like the lion, like the birds” I realized. I could feel the life in my body, the air in my skin, the earth in my muscles. “The mountain lion and I are not so very different”, I thought, “we are both animals, we are both nature. The lion has a way of expressing who she is that is different than my way but, ultimately, we are not so very different at all”.
We are no so very different – humans, animals, trees, birds, rocks, oceans. We are nature. We don’t have nature, we don’t own nature. We are nature. And because we are nature, all of us, we can relate, there is a common ground, a space where we can understand one another. We can relate when we allow ourselves to open to the possibility of relationship.
“We are not so very different” I thought in the last few weeks, as the battle over health insurance raged on. “Why do republicans fight the change so desperately?”, I wondered. “Are they all evil psychopaths who wish to exterminate half of the population for the sake of profit? Or are they scarred and fighting for safety for themselves, for better life for their children, for care and support? Isn’t that what democrats want, what Obama wants? Safety, better life for children, care, support?”
Republicans way of organizing it, of expressing it, is different than that of democrats but, ultimately, they all want the same things. They strive and fight for the same reasons.
Are the CEOs of large corporations corrupt, greedy monsters, who care nothing for anyone or anything other than the number on their bank account statement? Are they willing, intentionally and with cold blood, to bankrupt nations and poison the earth, so that they can buy yet another house, yet another car? Or are they looking for safety, for protection that they believe comes from power? Are they striving to create empires that will provide for their families for generations, that will give safety and support to their children?
The corporate way of organizing it, of expressing it, is different than that of “regular” people’s with nine-to-five job and a mortgage but, ultimately, we all want the same things: protection, support, safety.
We are not so very different. And because we are not so very different, because we all strive for the same things, there is a common ground, a space where we can understand one another. We can relate when we allow ourselves to open to the possibility of relationship.
How would the world change? If all we did was to realize that we are nature – humans, lions, birds, trees, rocks, fishes in the ocean? If all we did was to realize that we are not so very different, that we all want the same things, that we strive and fight for the same reasons? How would the world change?
Without organizing, fixing, overthrowing governments and revolting against the powerful and wealthy, without creating new systems, new sets of rules, without imposing new, “better”, order, without inventing new technologies, without saving the earth and rescuing the planet, but only with the simple realization that we are all nature, that we are not so very different – how would the world change?
It might turn into a paradise, for everyone, overnight.
Everything is. There is a universe in the tiniest leaf, there is a whole of creation in me. I will see it, if I look.
I really enjoy my art class. The teacher begun her introduction, on the first day, by saying: drawing is not about putting shapes down on paper, it is not about what you can do with pencil and charcoal, it is not about technique and skill. Drawing is about looking. Everyone can draw, she said. If you can see it, you can draw it.
We had a homework exercise that made the point beautifully. The task was to draw a fruit or a vegetable, from memory. Then to take an actual fruit or vegetable and draw it again, this time from observation.
Drawing a pepper from memory took me about five minutes. It was a simple shape, elongated, grooved. It looked like a pepper, it was a pepper, everyone would recognize it as a pepper in an instant.
Then I took a pepper and placed it in front of me. Forty minutes later I was nowhere close to completing my drawing. There was so much detail, so many shadowy shapes, so many highlighted places. The longer I looked at the pepper the more details I noticed. Grooves, ridges, stumps, kinks, depressions, curves. They were endless. I could have drawn for hours, for days, for years, and never be “finished” with describing the pepper with my pencil. The pepper was endless, unlimited.
What a beautiful illustration of our relationship to reality that is, I thought as I drew. We see reality in symbols, simplifications, streamlined shapes. An elongated shape is a pepper, a round shape is an orange, a round shape with rays is a sun. Killing is bad, being nice is good, stealing is wrong, giving is right.
Our mind, being always on the defense, can not open to the wealth of shades, shapes, kinks, curves, stumps and depressions. The mind makes things simple so that we can “deal with them”, categorize them, judge them. So that we are safe, so that we understand, so that we are sure to be good, sure to “do the right thing”.
But what if we let go of mind? What if we look? Then we will see an entire universe in a small, red pepper. Then there will be an entire universe in a smallest leaf. If we ask a question and look, we will see an entire universe in ourselves.
Then every single pepper is perfectly complete and unique, no better or worse than other peppers, but perfect as itself. Then each one of us is complete and absolutely unique, perfect as who we are. Then everything is complete and absolutely unique, perfect as what it is.
Everything is the real question. Everything is the real answer. If we can see it.
I am done with my life, I realized recently. It’s been coming on for quite some time, as a feeling, sensations I couldn’t see clearly. And there was trauma clouding and distorting.
But as the picture cleared, as my presence opened and the trauma left I realized that I am done with life. I am completed with life as it is usually understood and structured. I have a family, I have friends, I have a way of making money I enjoy and am good at, I live in a lovely place. Details of my life are organized as I want them to be. I realized that there is nothing more I need.
I could work more and make more money, or I could work doing something else, I could move to an even lovelier place, to a different place, to a bigger house or just a different house. I could get another car, I could rescue another dog … I could get much more but, in essence, it would be more of the same. I already have all I need.
Seen from mind’s point of view, seen from society’s perspective, my life is completed.
Seen from my own point of view my life is now beginning.
I am finished with organizing the outside according to the outside rules, I am completed with doing things to get other things. I am now free to be who I am.
I am completed with organizing things that are considered necessary and important. Now I am free to organize things that are an expression of who I am.
I am completed with existing inside of reality defined by others. Now I am free to create reality that makes sense to me only, because it is mine.
I am completed with being Pausha Foley, age 34, a wife, polish immigrant, graphic designer. Now I am free to be whomever I wish in the world, even if the world has no name for it yet.
I am completed with relating the way I was trained. Now I am free to relate the way I relate, even if my way of relating isn’t known in the world yet.
Now that I have done what was expected of me, now that I have completed all that a person “should do in life”, I am free to be. Boundlessly, limitlessly, uniquely myself.
