Our cat Billie posing in the box for me, just for fun. (These are posted in the order in which I took them, as she moved around the box.)
Tag Archives: Interbeing
A wing and a prayer
A poem & photo reflection from eight years ago that I found again today. (Photos by Margy Dowzer.)
I think of the wing of a bird
the wing I found by the side of the road
of a bird now dead
the wing so intricate and beautiful
now in decay
I imagine this–the millions of birds–
beautiful
coming into being, fading away
the artist painting a billion paintings
the stories wondrous, tragic
the story of that bird—alive,
growing feathers, flying, eating
alive and then dead,
and then the materials un-forming
so brief a story, so brief a life
I imagine The Life
creating itself into a billion forms
and then re-creating another billion forms
with almost infinite variation
a kaleidoscope of beauty and diversity
and different ways of being conscious of the work
and different ways of participating in creating
making choices
Can you feel the inner creative energy in each one?
So now I am creating and seeing as Myke
(and how beautiful I am
eyes looking out at this world
heart capable of love
making changes, healing, choosing)
and I will dissolve and disintegrate too
and I will reform into a new being
The larger I Am –it sounds so static, in a way–
yet it is not static
it is creating, evolving, engaging, weaving, curious
dare I say hopeful?
(Is there a goal to which it strives?)
(Or is it playing to see what happens next?)
(Am I?)
The stories, billions of stories
Can the stories appreciate the magic
be full of wonder and gratitude
enjoy the show?
I am that
I am the bird who grew feathers and died
and was seen by the Myke
and was photographed by the Margy
I want to wake up
Holy One,
open my body and emotions and intellect
to be united in awareness with my Larger Self
with the Creator
with the Limitless One
Help me to remember who I Am
as the I
as the Myke
Each being is beautiful
We are all one Being
Each story is beautiful
We are all one Story
The Larger Whole
Spirituality is our experience of connection to the larger whole of which we are a part. I believe that each being is sacred, and we are all one family, one circle. My deepest experiences convince me this is true, even though we may forget, even despite the ways we may be estranged. Linda Hogan writes that the purpose of ceremony is to remember that all things are connected. She says:
“The participants in a ceremony say the words ‘All my relations’ before and after we pray; those words create a relationship with other people, with animals, with the land. To have health it is necessary to keep all these relations in mind.”
As we begin to build bridges across the broken places within our hearts, across the broken places between peoples, across the broken places between people and the earth, we are doing the work of mending the world. We are awakening, we are remembering, the reality in which we actually live, the unity of all. The Buddhists call it inter-being. In South Africa it is called ubuntu: we are all born to belonging, and we know ourselves in just and mutual relationship to one another. We move beyond the small self of the ego, into the larger Self some call God, or what I have called Mystery. Thomas Merton writes,
“We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”
The purpose of spirituality is to remember that all things are connected and to heal the brokenness between us.
An old Rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and day had begun.
“Could it be,” asked one of the students, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?”
“No,” answered the Rabbi.
Another asked, “Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it’s a fig tree or a peach tree?”
“No,” answered the Rabbi.
“Then what is it?” the pupils demanded.
“It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that it is your sister or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night.”
(Hasidic Tale)
Quotes from Linda Hogan, Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World, (New York: Norton, 1995)
Thomas Merton: Essential Writings, edited by Christine Bochen. (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 2000)
Hasidic Tale, Quoted in Spiritual Literacy, edited by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, p. 502.
Finding Our Way Home 