I continue to experience some kind of inner terror that causes me to feel nauseous and want to vomit.  It’s something that I usually only experienced in early mornings while prepping myself for a serious of potentially stressful meetings.  But lately I’ve been concerned because it’s happened in the middle of the day or evening when trying to sleep.

So today I took a nap after returning from work.  I woke up around 7 PM kind of feeling displaced and groggy, wondering if this oddly placed nap was going to effect my ability to get a good night sleep and be prepared for a 7 AM meeting the next day.  I was sort of feeling a bit nauseous.  So I took my dog out for a short walk and then I was struck by a remarkably compassionate day.

There was still sunlight out.  The sky was still blue.  The temperature was moderate.  Other people were on there regular walking routes either for exercise or to walk their dogs. And as I stared up at the kind sky I was reminded of this sensation I had before of gratitude to belonging to Earth, Mother Earth, Gaiam.

I remember attending a meditation last week where everyone was extolling the fact that we are “star dust” sort of giving the feeling that we are spirits transcending Earth going beyond this meager Earthly dimension.  And then some ten years ago I attended a spiritual retreat in Hawaii where the leader had discussed discovering whether one was a mere “human being” unawakened and part of this daily mundane human existence, or possibly a awakened being born of Mother Earth.  And then he went on further to describe a smaller select group who might discover that they are beings beyond Earth, that they are beings of the Universe, once again a sense of rising above, being better than, being greater than this meager, finite, and mundane existence on planet Earth.  So all this is consistent with this feeling that the path to resolution, salvation, a calming, is an intention to rise above it all, the financial worries, the physical ailments, even death and loss, because we are immortal spirits wearing sort of a temporary clothing of physical body.

But what I was reminded of today was something a bit more contrary to this spiritual feeling.  Today I embraced my ordinariness in physical body.  I was not a spirit in a physical body.  I was a physical body nothing more.  No more or less than the building I’m next to, the grass, the trees, the air, the clouds, the earth, the ants and my dog.  Every atom of me came from material of this Earth and so I felt one of this Earth.  I am truly a child and moving spiritual expression of this planet Earth.  And when I die I didn’t feel like I needed to rise above to live above this Earth.  No, I felt comfort in an idea that I am actually my physical body and when I die I will decay and become part of this planet Earth possibly in parts to be resurrected in other physical forms  … or not.  I have been, currently am and will be a piece of the sunlight, the birds, the smell, the dirt, the grass, the cat, the people, the trees, the streams, the clouds, the vast sky and every aspect of everything that has been and will be of this wonderful, safe, sacred planet Mother Earth. And being simply just of the dirt in the ground and not having to aspire to be anything more was so comforting.  I don’t have to rise above.  I can actually just sink down and exist and be of the dirt.  So comforting.

And strangely in this acceptance, or more like drinking in of this mundane human existence I felt a bliss of the kind that seemed to match the bliss when I’ve talked about “touching into the Source”.  I wasn’t trying to tap into something “special” but sort of in a way “giving up” and surrendering to the imperfect and vulnerable daily existence of just one tiny person amongst so many other things and creatures on this planet.  I’m no one special, I tried to be, but I give up.  And in that giving up while sitting on a grassy hill side with my dog sitting by my side as we both watch the final minutes of the day waste away I felt comforted, I felt ordinary, and I felt bliss.

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