Commerce

September 22, 2011

                Morning sunlight floods the Lorane valley, and I am in the little white chair out front, drinking tea.  And then the Sit begins, and it’s very good today. I slip immediately into an expansive state, following the sensation of the breath.  As thoughts and feelings recede, the first thing I notice today is the busy-ness of this little valley, a busy-ness that mostly goes un-noticed.

                A tiny spider drapes a thread of silk across the back of my ear.  I reach up to brush it away, requiring that he build his trap elsewhere.  A black and white chickadee sits in the Douglas Fir tree ten feet from me, squawks loudly and flys away, his wings making a buzzing sound this close up.  A woodpecker sits on a thick limb high in the same tree, slamming his beak down into the bark over and over again, creating a resounding “thwock” with each impact; thwock, pull back, listen, repeat.  Hawks circle above, calling to each other in shrill, far-away notes.  Larry stalks across the driveway and woofs at a passing car.

                All of this is meaningful to everyone involved, I have no doubt.  But it’s kind of distracting.  Then a hummingbird appears, off to my right.  Because I am sitting so still, he doesn’t realize I’m a person, and it doesn’t occur to him to be afraid.  He stops his flight even with my head, and pulls in for a look, hovering.  The buzzing of his wings is palpable, the feathers on his back reflect the morning sun in iridescent green and blue.  For an eternal two seconds, he is one foot away from my face, his tiny black eyes regarding me with a stark awareness un-cluttered by ego.  I remain frozen, and for a time, we share a mutual gaze that is unspeakably intimate.

                And then, he’s gone.  He leaves me with a profound taste of what I’m striving for.  A close encounter with a vast awareness that is infinitely connected, that knows no ego and no boundaries, an awareness that knows exquisite existence, un-sullied by purpose. 

                This is the spacious place I wait to enter, or to enter me, each time I take the One Seat.  After my hummingbird encounter, the state seems sweeter and more accessible today.  I pull my attention in from the intense commerce of the animal kingdom of the Lorane Valley, inward, then back out, with a spacious and unidentified awareness, recently modeled to me by the hummingbird, the spider, the woodpecker, and Larry.

                It makes me smile.  Down on the highway, a car goes by.