Musings on a sunny day

I wonder what we would see if our eyes caught different reflections from the objects we focus on.  What would I see if I had the black and white vision of a dog?  Or the sharp eyes of an eagle?  What would I no longer notice?  How different would my world be if I saw the world as a horse does?  What if, rather than touch, I felt the world through increased sight and sound and smell, or perhaps had no sight, or no hearing?  I wonder if I would notice the devastation my species has on the planet more acutely.  Maybe I would fall in love with this planet more intensely by noticing it in a different way.  How different would my lover appear to me if I could not see him, but could perhaps hear his intentions in his words, and could pick up on the various inflections of his voice?  What would I feel in the landing of a butterfly on the skin of my arm if the hairs on my arm were as sensitive as the feelers of an insect?  If I could see the wind, would it take all the mystery out of life?

If I were a dolphin, would I revel in the feeling of water rushing past my sleek body?  Were I a horse, would I gallop across a field purely to chase the feeling the wind makes as it wraps its fingers through my mane, entangling joy through its weaving?  If I were to wake up as a wolf, would I learn to recognize fear in a whole new way? If I were a tree, would I gain wisdom as I sit through hundreds of years of silent meditation?  What would a river tell me if I were a pebble sitting on the stream bottom?

I cannot know the reasons I chose to occupy this life of mine, perhaps the only reason is so that I may wonder all of these thoughts.  I get frustrated at times knowing that there’s no way to possibly know what it would be like to be anything else but who I am in this body.  But, I can imagine.

Godliness in a deer

The other evening, the sky was dark and stormy.  The colors blended together until even the bright flowers were faintly accepting the immensity of the occasion.  The wind whirled through the trees, whushing its way along.  If I looked hard enough, I could look beyond the pale green-grey of the fields and see beyond this world and into the next, could see where the wind rushed off to as it whipped through the grass.  All became one, accepting the wind’s mischief.  A bright spot of sunlight flickered down, outlining a deer’s coat in brilliance, and I saw in her a great God, and I was reminded of myself.  She snorted at me as I watched, bounding off into the forest in graceful leaps nearly twice her height.  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

A mustard seed

While I am very much in love with myself and my spirit, I have always struggled with a certain frustration at not being able to experience what it’s like to not be me.  I would not trade my life with anyone else’s, I just…want to know what it’s like to, I don’t know, be a tree, or a flower, or have the brain power to understand the most complex math or physics.  Or to know what it feels like to be the brave amd courageous hero or heroine who brings goodness back to a desolate land. Or know what it feels like to think the way a man thinks. I feel like I could have a lot more sympathy toward my boyfriend if I truly understood the way he thinks 

This frustration has lead to jealousy.  Not jealousy of other people’s possessions, simply jealousy that I can’t inherently understand the way they think.  I am just me.  And this life is all I know.  I don’t know what it feels like to have a calm mind, or to live in a tropical location, or even something simpler such as having dark eyes.  I am, quite anxiously, me.

This has also led to neglect in getting down to the roots of who I am.  I spend so much time regretting that I can’t relax enough to sleep in til noon that I fail to act upon the meditative advantages that awaking at 6, or 4:30, can bring.  I agonize over how un-enlightened a culture we have and do not absorb the joy that comes from meeting one who has true wisdom.  My anxious and worried constitution has caused me to cry countless tears, as has my insistence to myself that I have nothing to offer this world except for a sensitive spirit that knows that there is a better way to support our existence on this planet, but doesn’t quite know how or desire to lead the way .  I am starting to wonder whether I have not come here to be the revolutionary heroine who brings the light back to a darkened land ( I am far to unorganized and indecisive to ever be an effective leader), but am here simply to be an observer who carries the tiniest mustard seed of knowing that there IS a better way.  I may not know how to be the leader who shows the way, and I lack the desire to be the revolutionary fighter, however, I will not harden myself to the destruction we bring to our planet and walk about in blissful ignorance of the poisons we surround ourselves with saying ‘that’s just the way it is’.  Perhaps my tears are all I need offer to this good earth to keep alive a seed of hope that one day we will truly awaken and know what it really means to live the glory of a human existence.