You Are Part Of Everything ~ The Web Of Existence

My mind wandered from the stifling focus and intensity of the Allting circle speakers.

Images of the African bush drifted into my thoughts, the omnipresent smell, the vultures always waiting, scorpions under every stone and the din of crickets and cicadas singing their territorial and mating songs every night since the beginning of time.

A tiny movement caught my eye.  Crawling on the black of my leggings was a minuscule green insect.  I bent down for a closer look and saw that it was like a microscopic grasshopper.  At another time I might have simply ignored it or even brushed it away, but I had been opened to more perceptions and realities in the short space I had been at that place, and so chose to look closer.

I wondered if it might be aware of me as anything more than a stone or a log that it might walk on as a hill is to us.  I reached out with my mind and asked it.  “You are in this circle too.  Have you come to tell me anything?”

There was no reply in words.  However my thoughts told me what it was I needed to know.  This tiny creature was not a being in isolation.  I moved out the focus of my attention and saw that it was only one amongst countless billions, trillions even, of creatures all working ceaselessly, tirelessly to maintain our world.  From the smallest microbe to the largest tree all organisms supported and contributed to the whole, producing the building blocks of life, consuming them, feeding itself and creating ever more complex systems and conditions.

 I felt the gigantic biological machine of life on Planet Earth as it stretched away from me around the globe.  I saw that it had existed for billions of years, and was seamless in its growth and perpetuation.  How we as humans depend upon the service that these beings give to us in sustaining our own life, that we indeed are a part of this machine.  That all life on our beautiful planet is intertwined, interdependent, and that the processes which constitute its being are a manifestation and description of the mind of God.

The biological machine is part in its turn of the greater material structure of the planet itself, which had come into being as a result of the laws and nature of material existence.  My little grasshopper did not need to speak to me about the affairs of humans, for it knew nothing of our ways, but by understanding its own nature I could see its place in the world, how it functioned and contributed to the whole.

All beings exist for themselves, but also are part of something more.  I felt humbled to understand how this immense carpet of life allowed me to exist.  We humans are not outside of this, but perhaps we have lost our way within its intimate and intricately woven pathways.

The chattering monkeys were a noise in the background.  They could bemoan their guilt, scold each other and quarrel, but if it did not help them see who they were and what they needed to be doing for the good of the Great Organism of which we are all cells, then they were doing no more than babble.

The human condition is indeed a paradox.  Emerging from billions of years of evolution we are the Universe looking back at itself.  But we have lost touch with the fact that we are indeed that Universe which we look at.  We have become fascinated with the bizarre idea that it is all a chance occurrence which has no meaning, while every day we are confronted with miracles beyond the capacity of humans to imagine or invent.  And we find ourselves at the very centre of this performance.

Shakespeare told us that all the world’s a stage.  And when we look at the props and scenery which create the illusion onstage, is it more important to know how they work, their pulleys and mechanisms, or to understand why they are there and the meaning of the stories they allow to be told?

The Great Machine of Life is the scenery and mechanism of the stage, and interesting it is to know how it works, if only so that we know why not to damage it; but we can ask questions about it and understand beyond that mere mechanism.  In so doing we create dimensions beyond the material plane.  Involuted realms of mind where questions which cannot be answered elsewhere are explored in order to understand the purpose of the Machine.  The Universe reflects on its own nature and how different perspectives and viewpoints within it can create such diverse feelings and attitudes in the beings which have them.

To reconcile the truths of our natures is surely what we are here for.  An insect is an insect and will follow its nature to drink nectar, eat leaves and so on.  Grass grows and gives us oxygen.  But what is our nature as humans?  The Master Jesus said that the birds have their nests, and the lion his den, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.  He did not mean that we have nowhere to live, but that God’s creatures have their purposes, their habits but what do we have? Who are we?

copyright © 2011 Claire Rae Randall

Heaven's Jewelbox

I had to shorten this for my book proposal due to considerations of length, but the wonderful thing about having this blog is that I can post 'outtakes and jams' as the good ole Grateful Dead would say.....

For me, one of the most important factors in my own personal awakening and connection with the Universe is a sense of awe and wonder at the grandeur and mystery of existence.

The night of 25th August 1995

Leaving the marquee I looked up and became aware of one of the most breathtaking and awesome sights I have ever witnessed.

The fire at the gate had died down, and we were sufficiently far from any towns or major roads for there to be no artificial glare thrown up into the sky. The total absence of cloud cover, though it made for a chill night, allowed me an untarnished view of the wondrous vault that stretched above.

The memory of the African sky which I had seen as a child had long dimmed. I took an interest in astronomy, regularly watching Patrick Moore’s ‘Sky at Night’, but living in a city I was only accustomed to the brightest of stars as points of light struggling to achieve visibility through the haze of pollution and sodium yellow street lights.

What I saw now was of a totally different order of existence. The sky shone with silver dust, hinting at colours just beyond sight as twinkling, it seemed to breath. The bright stars that I was familiar with were lost amid the multitude and I was forced to orient myself with the points of the compass even to find the North Star.

A river of sparkling gems stretched across the infinite vastness above me. From behind me to my left the Milky Way arched across the sky, high above the silhouette of the Malvern hills on the Eastern edge of the world reaching its climax before me and to my right, as it slid down to the South Western horizon and disappeared behind the stygian blackness of the wood beyond our field. Although I did not reflect upon it at the time, it was only a matter of hours before the New Moon, and so this celestial vision was unaffected by any rival intrusion of light.

The city dweller is accustomed only to single stars, but here they were beyond count. If most of the sky glowed with the lights which were strewn across it, winking in the invisible currents of the atmosphere, then the brightness of the galactic disc was bejewelled, glistening and thick with stars jostling for space as they marched along the arcing bridge that spanned the inky background of the skyfield.

The galactic hub was illuminated with the lights of worlds uncounted. They melted together into a crescendo of brilliance where the wealth of heaven’s treasure chest had been heaped.

As I gazed upon this panoply of splendour I felt an echo of the awe which early civilisations from the desert parts of the world had had for the sky and its gods. A shooting star marked its passage through this vision of eternity and I forgot the cold which was seeping into my bones.

The frosty encrustation of the galactic centre in the empyrean was rent with blackness where only a thin scattering of individual points of light broke through. The ancients had believed that it was impossible for a mortal to look upon the face of God and live. The chasm of darkness hid the very centre of the celestial core. The Mayans knew this as the birthplace of the World, or the Womb of Creation, the Hunab Ku, the veiled place of God. To others it was the Cosmic Yin, the dark empty place from which all reality was spawned. But it was also the Mouth of Kali, the Goddess of Death who devours all things.

A second meteor burnt up in the atmosphere before my eyes, puncturing the protective skin of ionised particles which enfolds our little world, momentarily bridging the gap from infinity to limitation. Viewing the crystalline splendour from which this burst of energy had emerged I reflected on the doctrine that the human race had been as gods before we fell from the heavens to our present lowly station. But was it not also told that we should build a ladder to the stars, and climb on every rung until we had regained our stature amongst the gods?

Feasting on the banquet of brilliance I hugged myself for warmth as I, amazed, tried to absorb the wonders which seemed so casually spilt across the heavens like the contents of a divine jewelbox, accidentally upended and spread out upon this velvet field.

A third shooting star gave itself up to oblivion, vaporising into a momentary stream of wonder for perhaps my eyes only. It was as if this entire wondrous display had been made solely for the purpose of taking my breath away. Though the sky is as public a thing as could be, I felt my contact with it to be intimate. Squatting, hunched up and hugging my knees, my body began to shiver and protest against the cold which was the price I paid for this.

There, utterly alone with myself in the middle of a field in the night, I was touched with the infinite, and yet could not have been less alone. It was one of those moments of total clarity with which we may be blessed when through accident or design, and perhaps some cunning mix of the two, we find ourselves in alignment with the Cosmos and there can be no doubt as to meaning or purpose. We are part of all this, and this is part of us. The billions of years which separate us from the fusion of our chemical elements in long-dead supernovae felt like the blink of an eye.

Looking, waiting for a fourth shooting star I was conscious of my shivering flesh and my bare feet wet with the dew. A heavenly gateway had been opened and I had glimpsed infinity in my soul as much as in the sky. But the wheel of change would not still for my inner world. I had been granted to feast on the divine spectacle for a few moments, to ask or hope for more was spiritual gluttony. Suddenly aware of how cold I felt, I was back in my material shell and the warmth of my little nest beckoned.

With a heavy heart I left the silvery gleam and made for the darkness of our night’s shelter. The gentle sound of slumberous breathing welcomed me and I slid into my sleeping bag, filled with wonder at my nocturnal cosmic journey.

copyright © 2011 Claire Rae Randall