Beautiful Monday to you!
There are times we feel we need to be alone to find our happiness.
It seems that even the unemployed are “busy” today. It is easy to “externalize yourself” through constant texting, messaging, emails, phone calls, meetings, gatherings, weather you work or not.
Soon enough, anyone can weave a web in the invisible world of mind. And soon after, one finds themselves constantly “outputting” to maintain the connections, but are they meaningful, enriching connections?
Or are they just an attempt to fill a space within with something so empty, that one risks becoming fatigued, even depressed from trying? I know many people that are wealthy enough that they don’t have to work and don’t.
You’d think they have all the time in the world to care for themselves and create happiness; believe me, when it’s time to give them even a simple healing program, many of them are too busy to participate in their own healing.
Many will travel the globe and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars looking for a pill that will feed them, bath them, exercise for them, love them, help them sleep, and provide the energy and sex drive to feel like they think they should from watching TV too much.
But try getting such people to stretch, walk down a different isle in the grocery store (the one with organic products), get to bed at a reasonable time, or, God forbid, meditate.
This is externalization of “self”.
Quite often, while working with stones, doing tai-chi, meditating, exercising, taking a nap, or completely spontaneously, I have visions, or hear poetic verse, or spontaneous insights within me. Frequently, they inform me of experiences to come.
Friday, after singing my 4 Doctor songs and rattling to start day of development work on a project I’m working on, I had such a message from my soul. Though I understood the message logically, and metaphysically, I didn’t yet realize what the message was pointing to.
This weekend began early for Vidya. She really wanted me to go into the desert with her to a yoga, music, and meditation event. I wanted to go but the tug inside me to be alone, and get some deep processing done was such that I didn’t think I could relax without following the pull of my intuition. Vidya and I parted company at the end of the workday Thursday.
I came to my office here in Heaven each day since. I had a lot of time alone, with the beauty of the land. Between periods of drawing diagrams, distilling concepts, and editing my writings, I would go outside and exercise a little.
Sunday, I was enjoying a beautiful, peaceful morning, walking in the garden and enjoying the sun and all the beauty. I looked around me and saw how amazingly beautiful my office garden and area have become.
I realized that Vidya had done the lion’s share of all of this herself. The little woman that she is, I looked out my window the other day to see her literally dragging quarter chunks of a tree out of the congested area of the garden by hand.
It was like watching a 13-year-old boy trying to hold a sheep while his father tries to sheer it. She’s very strong and capable, and I love to see her exercise, so I didn’t try and rescue her.
There are rock stacks all around me that she built. Each one of them, an acupuncture needle placed in the garden with love. They have become perches that lizards and birds seem to share happily together.
As I was experiencing a flood of love and gratitude for Vidya, and all that she adds to my life every day, I noticed smoke rising from the orchard just across the fields in the valley at our back window.
At first, I thought maybe they were doing a controlled burn in the orchards there. Naturally, living in a (very) high danger area for fires, I got concerned.
The fire continued to grow! The smoke was filling the air, like a dull cloud. I watched a little while, but thinking it was the local orchard owner dong a controlled burn, I didn’t get too worked up; but my mind was constantly “witnessing” as the air got more and more smoky.
All the sudden, it got VERY loud! It was as though a military movement was taking place in the air, and on land all around me. I looked out my window from my desk where I sit as I type this and right in front of me was a water-bomber helicopter.
As you can see in the photo (sorry for the poor quality. I was rushing), it hovered a couple feet off the surface of the lake right next to me. It was filling with water.
I looked up to see two water bomber airplanes flying in low, right over my head on decent to the fire. The air strikes were fast and furious. The helicopter probably made eight trips to the lake at the edge of our property here. In a few hours, it was out and under control.
THE GIFT
As the fire was happening, I was moving around the property to get better vantage points to see what was going on. I didn’t know if we may get evacuated any moment. There were cop trucks all around the area.
I tried to call Vidya just to let her know what was happening, since I felt she would want to know. I couldn’t reach her. I then called Penny and texted her some photos (and Vidya). I let her know they were in full attack mode and it looks like they will control the fire.
Once the smoke settled and I knew our place was safe, I happened to look at what I’d written and drawn on the board.
I immediately recognized my feelings of the joy of being alone to have time to do my inner-process work. As the risk of the fire grew, I could only think of how sad it would be to loose this place we love so much, and have such a loving, connected relationship with, were to burn. The pain of having so many animal friends, plant friends, and watching the destruction of people’s homes and land made me realize that we all love, and need each other.
As this event took place, I could never have been depressed, regardless of how depressed I was before the fire began to attract attention from the fire department. Regardless of how emotional or angry I may have been toward any of my neighbors, I would have forgotten it all and done anything to help them.
I felt the connection in the fabric of life tearing before me. It was as though the fire was opening a gate to another dimension, but one that we can’t enjoy fresh vegetables, lifting rocks, or dancing naked in the flesh.
Would I want to go there, or possibly be alone there?
I realized that my vision and what I wrote was a little reminder to myself, that God does give us quite, and the chance to be all alone. But when we have it, something inside us often can’t resist connecting to others. Sharing.
It is as if being still, centered, without need, is so powerful, it explodes from within us. It is as though we’ve been so still, for sooo long, that we must drink from the river of movement (life).
This event reminded me that the Universe, and the world is such that it has only itself to love and appreciate. With all the silence and vast emptiness of the Universe, it decided to create galaxies of stars, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and all beings of nature.
As I watched this fire, all alone here, I could only think of all the love that Penny, Vidya and I have put into this land. All the amazing non-human relationships we have here, and how amazingly nourishing they are hung in the balance before me.
I realized that when I’m all alone, dead quiet, deep in meditation, or even sleep, the soul of me constantly reaches out to touch all that I love. I awaken to myself from these experiences, often thinking, “yes, I must remember to call my mother”, or “my son”, or some other person that shares love with me.
Then, in the middle of a firestorm, my heart racing, my emotional body reaching out into nature to hold the hands of my friends, what am I doing?
I’m reaching for the phone again, to call the people that love me, that I love to hold hands and use our spirits to blow rain on the fire with the fire department.
The fire is gone now. All my little friends are safe. Vidya is home safe. Penny is home safe too; and looking HOT by the way!
I am not happy. I am not sad.
Blissful is the only word that works for me right now.
As my day here finished yesterday, I began rebuilding my water charger to handle large 5 gallon glass bottles. This is an active meditation for me.
I do not use my intellectual mind at any point in this process. I just “feel” and “listen”, and when I have the right stone, I feel calm and centered. If I pick it up and walk in the wrong direction, I feel a pull; I’m leaving my center.
After a few hours of hard work, and lots of sweating in the heat, I stopped here for the evening so I had time to go home and have a sauna and watch a movie with Penny.
As I was handling the stones, particularly the black lava, I realized they had been through the fire, yet here they were again, involved in the creation in the acts of love and joy with me!
I can’t say for sure that I will make it through the fire to love again, but I can say for sure that the spirits they once were, are here again to love with me again.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
