We Are Wholeness
Yet our culture manipulates us into separation and psychological fear
There is Nothing Separate.
We are all differentiated, and yet, One.
Paradox yes.
The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.
Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)
i walk into the arc of presence
riddles speaking
of generations gone by
of living fountains
of microscopic swarms of life
fiddling beneath my feet
i walk upon landscapes never explored
i walk into lands never seen or touched
i am home -
We are not flawed as a human species. Inherently, we are whole, free, and full of love. Culture and community can either help bring that out in people, or it shall try and enslave the very best of ourselves…………….
Our culture and those who believe in its dogma are participating in violence.
Capitalism is a system of unlimited growth, a cancer to the earth’s body. It is a collective groupthink ideology based on the mythology of the hungry ghost, an entity that can never fulfill itself. It gives rise to enormous corruption and rationalizations to continue a war against nature and humanity to create artificial security and safety for a few. It has always been on a track of destruction, for it needs to consume constantly and hold itself upright through the use of oppression. Because we are all riding on that train with no idea what else to do, we all conform to its evil intent without knowing we are doing so. Capitalism growth is built on the backs of slavery, poverty, and environmental degradation. Yet, within one moment, we can all stop and decide not to go on like this.
Impermanence…This is the dance of all life. Love holds it all together without ever tying the knot…. All is and ever will be as it is. In love, we see no hierarchy but a living web in which every creature is connected, not one higher or lower. Seeing all life as sacred, we treat life as such. Living in love, one lets go of the tiller of control, and sorrow dissolves like mist.
But for now, in this one life, you encompass, how will you shine your love upon all you come across…?……
A battle has been waged against your soul, and the fight is now. This culture wants domestication and that being at war with nature and treating animals with violence is necessary. It will have you not only violate your wonder, essential values, and authenticity but also train you to think that those things are childish. Your culture says that you are desperate and sinful. Your culture says that the earth is dead and full of resources just for people. Yet, these are beliefs that fuel fear and are illusions. Your soul desires life. It wants to burn brightly with courage and conviction, yet it can so easily dim and fade away as messages of fear and destruction rage against it…..You can either continue to walk aimlessly or take the veil from your eyes and let your eyes be opened…..Are we aware enough to see our own suffering, to see that to blossom truly, we must leap into our fear, leap into our beliefs, our clinginess, and let go? As Anais Nin shared, “And the may day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Here, we will see that our universe, our earth, is alive and that there is nothing to own or run towards.
— — — — —
Historically and presently, our culture has manipulated people to fall into roles and beliefs that are inherently violent to freedom and truth. Our culture has a structure that invites poverty, environmental degradation, and endless wars to promote growth and power for the few. Within the framework of our dysfunctional hierarchal global culture, we are taught in all countries of the world, whether democratic, communistic, open, or oppressive, that we are separate from all that is around us, that even the wilderness, water, and food can be bought, sold, and manipulated any way we want regardless of impact and that we need to continue to overpopulate and destroy the world to succeed.
We are taught to ignore wonder, voice, and our inherent connection to the wild, creating blindness to our actions and pushing out our authenticity. We live lives trying to show that we are successful and happy, yet deep down inside, there is a vacuous emptiness fraught with despair. Trying to hide away from this fact, we buy into entertaining ourselves or blindly follow politicians and religious authoritative manipulative rhetoric, filling our emptiness with hollow beliefs. This ignorance blinds us and pushes us towards buying into the propaganda that fulfills our hierarchical violence.
From the belief that we are not only separate from the world but also that the mind, body, and spirit are separated from each other, psychological fear and ignorance are born. Fear conceals us from wholeness, truth, love, and freedom. The irony of all this, of course, is our belief, drilled into our psyche since we were young, focuses us on this idea that we are separate from all that is and that drama is not only normal but the only comfortable way to be. Otherwise, one is boring. Yet, we rarely question what that actually means. We are taught to believe that happiness comes from outside sources, such as gaining more knowledge, experiences, wealth, and acquisitions.
Of course, having everything in the world does not create happiness at all but rather is violence to ourselves and those that we feel stand in our way. “Nothing profits the world more as much as the abandoning of profits. A man who no longer thinks in terms of loss and gain is the truly non-violent man, for he is beyond all conflict.” Illuminated Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Our whole economic system is based on hierarchy. No matter if you are impoverished or you are wealthy, one is constantly striving for material benefits and comfort and are enslaved to the system. This is juxtaposed to a culture based on helping every individual discover themselves and find value in their potential as human beings. Our culture is based on finding material gain, for as a culture, we see ourselves separate from what is around us. See, we are going in a completely wrong direction, for, in fact, we are not separated from anything. In essence, we are whole and intertwined with all things. When we return home to ourselves, we begin to find joy and live our true calling.
The educational conditioning of our culture imprisons our minds with ignorance and ignorance, creating dysfunction in the world. It forces us inside classrooms, away from nature, away from our curiosity, and forces us to go from class to class without any real participation in what a child is interested in. “Most of us walk unseeing through the world, unaware alike of its beauties, its wonders, and the strange and sometimes terrible intensity of the lives that are being lived about us.” Rachel Carson wrote. How we have been conditioned to think is causing all the issues plaguing our planet. We move through life acting out the dreams and sorrows of our past, locked in a prescribed security blanket of beliefs, and have no idea who we truly are or the impact we have upon all creatures, great and small.
Each one of us can participate in destroying this system, the cultural system that is in our minds, if we could just stop and check in with the ultimate belief that we are separate and dive into this to see if it is true or not. If we could wake up and see our wholeness and interconnectedness to all things, we would change the very foundation of our society because we would let go of cultural conditioning. If we were to wake up, we could have the potential to live authentically free and whole and see the earth as a part of us, not separate in community.
I have come to understand that (1) love, wholeness, and freedom are what we are, and (2) all the issues raging within ourselves and with the planet are interrelated. (3) How we educate molds and conditions us into our cultural economic dream-state, which establishes the dysfunctional and divisive worldview that is not sustainable and blinds us from who we authentically are. (4) There have been countless past indigenous cultures that lived in balance with the wilderness, proving that culture is taught and there are many possible ways to live. (5) We can wake up and see that the inherent freedom and love within us and all around us is here for us to have and behold and that it is our right to live healthy, authentic lives. (6) if we change how we educate and see our children and the life around us, our world will be transformed from divisive to imbued with wholeness, love, and freedom. (7) We as teachers and adults must release the tiller of control and transform how we educate and see our children to foster wholeness and love rather than separation and fear.
— — — -
I sit quietly in my small apartment. All is wholeness. there is nowhere to go, nothing to be. Listening. Love is for i see no separation. All is interwoven, and in all of it, i see myself. Love had continuously resided there in my wholeness; I rarely noticed it, as I was blind for many years. Yet, the riddle philosophers have been wrestling with for thousands of years is not so elusive. The problem is that they were searching for the answer through the lens of their own cultural conditioning, which keeps us blind from seeing with awareness.
All we need to do is pause and look without an agenda in openness. It is here, in presence, that we would see that we are whole as the ego drops away. Anything that blinds us from this fact is simply a dream that has conditioned us. It is not about gaining more knowledge, growing and evolving towards or into a greater consciousness. It is about letting go and removing what is false and binding. The you that is you has always been and always will be. This is possible for anyone, no matter the station or the impact of oppression. It lies as all. We have experienced this wholeness when our minds were quiet, we had nowhere to go, and we were fully engaged in complete presence.
Letting loose back into our wholeness emblazes love and opens our eyes to a new way of seeing. Here, we understand that we can’t change the world, for the world is us. Yet, it is not trying to change the world. The change happens because one has changed. There is no forcing. It is simply not conforming or putting on the mask anymore.
Evolution has nothing to do with getting better. Species are not trying to be a better aspect of what they are. They flow with what is. Changes coevolve, for everything is interdependent. Nothing changes by itself. If we are supposed to wake up, it has nothing to do with trying to wake up. This is not evolution and is just a play of the ego. Waking up means letting go and not trying. Just listening and letting go of all illusion. If awakening happens, it has nothing to do with the personal self. It is letting go, flowing back into the natural flow of all that is.
— — -
Look at is not the social structure but instead what creates the social structure, which is oneself. What we are searching for lies always within, In wholeness, a lightness would flow through us. We would see that we live on a sublime and beautiful earth. Upon every footstep is a wonder. An earth imbued with a diversity of life. We would see that all the flora and fauna, rivers and oceans, mountains and valleys, forests and deserts create a sphere of interconnected ecosystems in which we are also intertwined. All together, and in each and in all, is wholeness. From the tiniest bacteria to the largest forest lies a sacredness and magnificence that can’t truly be measured. We would see that all species are hitched to each other in a glorious web of infinite togetherness.
What is wholeness? Wholeness is complete, immeasurable, eternal, and contains all. Wholeness is our Holiness. We see it rise within us when we are fully present, where thoughts disappear, and a deep penetrating silence envelops everything in its embrace. Wholeness is a symbol to describe the immeasurable. Wholeness is what we are, what every single thing is, and what flows through everything. That is why the earth was not made for us, nor is the earth filled with resources for us to consume or own. All things, including the earth and Sun, moon and stars, pebbles and soil, plants, and animals, are full of energy and wholeness and no less than us.
Let’s listen for a moment, letting our thoughts drift away. We can begin to transcend our old stories and beliefs and return to the wholeness of ourselves. Love will open us to seeing our relations to all things, for instead of projecting the old dysfunction of division, we will see ourselves in everything. Seeing with awareness is love. In love, I see nothing I want to make suffer or violate; I see myself. This is vulnerability, and in vulnerability is strength and courage to leap. Yet, here is the beautiful thing. Once we see who we are, we see that we no longer need to be part of the drama of culture, we need not be impacted by what others say or do, and hence we can’t be hurt, for in compassion, we see clearly and understand that most are stuck in their dramas, their stories.
Stop and listen into your breath, illustrating impermanence, life, death, slowing down, and flow. Breathe in and feel the flow of life spilling through us and into the earth and cosmos. In this listening, letting thoughts quiet down will remind us that our mind, body, and spirit are one and that energy is not separate but whole. Begin to see and ask who I am. In stopping and looking, we can question our cultural story’s assumption that we are separate. In that space, a whole new world will emerge. Here, we see that not only are we whole but also intertwined with all that is and will ever be. Listening, we shall see how all is as is. In this place of presence, we will begin to see our place within an ecological wholeness that leads us into sustainability and love.
Stopping led me to see the delusion that was my enculturated, deeply conditioned personal self. Into a journey to discover the truth at all costs, i let go of this self, flowed into wholeness, and rediscovered what I always was, all that is. I emerged from ignorance and conditioning. Here, I don’t need anything. All is. Present.
Yet, I must use the ego to live in a time and place. Now, I see the ego not as reality but as a beautiful evolutionary gift, for when healthy and not manipulated by an unhealthy cultural system, I can use and play around with it as I dance in the freedom of presence. When breathing with the fragrance of love, the ego shines in beauty and light and includes and harmonizes with the flow. Rather than an ego full of ignorance and fear, I am now full of love, which guides me when i need to wear it. The navigational system makes more sense than the ego, as my whole system has evolved to navigate the world to keep my organism safe and thriving. In health, it comes into being when needed and quiets when it is not. And awareness is seen when the navigational system arises.
Instead of chasing dreams, instead of looking out into the future for happiness, I see that I have all I need. The earth is the floor that circles everywhere, the sky the infinity that lies as my roof. I sing alive as I see in each species, each very being, a delight and unique essence, my relations which all flow into one another. There is no rush here but a gathering of presence that is always fulfilled. Gratitude lies in touching the earth, feeling the sun’s and moon’s energy, experiencing mellow days and stormy nights, and seeing the stars, for I know that they are the keepers of life. In gratitude, I feel joy and love spring upon every footstep.
Love is within and springs to full blossom when one sees that everything is oneself. This is seen in presence. Here, the wondrous tapestry of presence enters. It is where one recognizes that wholeness lies in the tiniest insect, in the mycelium of fungi, and even in deer scat. Here, one sees that energy flows through all with no division. Wholeness is an immeasurable, infinite ocean with no beginning or end, has no lines or marks of separation, and this is all, and all is us. Here, one does not need to arrive somewhere else to gain more knowledge or be better. One sees that one is already precisely who one needs to be and is completely okay. Here in love is when joy flows without trying.
— — -
The sun was rising,
soft and gentle
a swollen ball of fire
just lifting over the horizon.
This wasn’t escaping
or going back to nature,
but rather in seeing
that the wild is everywhere
i feel infinitely young
Wet and invigorated,
i sit nestled next to this raging creek,
watching tiny falls
cascade into the vivid blue-green pools.
While i bathe In the warm sunlight,
the song of this river
and the mellow breeze
rushed into me.
Swallows dart and dance
across a startlingly blue sea.
A tiny swarm of black flies
zigzag in the warming air.
Standing like sentinels,
trees flutter
in multi shades of emerald,
drinking in the
effervescent shafts of gold.
Three red squirrels
chase each other
in ecstatic play
unaware of anything
but themselves
a red tailed hawk
swoops silently down,
and rips one away and
disappears back into the woods
a dance of life and death
Time seems to disappear
while the day unfolded into night.
i watch
as my ceiling
slowly becomes
a sea of blistering stars
glowing
in the hallowed darkness.
i am in awe
into the Wild
all flora and fauna
flow
undivided
in Ecology’s grand symphony
everything is dancing
in a wondrous
energetic tapestry
woven together
a balance of life / death
creation / destruction
order / disorder
harmony / chaos
in the wilderness
there are no designated areas
no arbitrary artificial lines of politics
and no controlled manipulations
there is in the wilderness
a flowing impermanence
flowing through wholeness
the wilderness is poetry dancing.
The earth and cosmos
an infinite wilderness
woven together
in an embrace with the
life-giving sun
communal moon
and glittering stars.
is a place
of wonder and awe
a place where
i breathe
each breath
in blessing
upon the spinning earth
i have nothing
i own nothing
but yet all is with me…
Here i can’t help but see
as the wilderness
weaves together
the atmosphere and oceans
topographies and climates
into the wondrous
grassland savannas
textured with multifaceted wildflowers,
pallets of sensual colors and smells
filled with the hum of insects
a wind
like an invisible current
of oceanic swells
is only seen and heard
through the dancing sway
of the unresisting grasses
the wilderness
lies in the parched dry deserts
of stone, sand, and cactus
here
i flow as
the wilderness
weaves forests
stretching into the sky.
from underneath
great arms
branch out in fractals of
color
spilling into symmetrical
arcs of green
gurgling brooks
laugh down like dreams
soft shafts of gold
frolic upon the ferns
while bird song
fills the space with light and joy
the wilderness
weaves into beautiful mosaics
rivers, wetlands, and great oceans.
the wilderness
weaves and sculptures
rain, snow, and wind
bringing life
to the inner continents
The Wilderness
like a phoenix
brings fires
to destroy the old
to bring in new life.
The Wilderness
is woven
by the crunching tectonic plates
designing
towering mountain chains, earthquakes, and volcanoes
From the wilderness,
all creatures
including you and I
are woven through evolution.
All is included
Diverse ecosystems
thread together
by migratory life cycles.
species..
birds,
mammals,
amphibians,
reptiles,
fish,
and insects
journey from one ecosystem into another
listening to the seasons
searching for food
The wood thrush
with its haunting flute like song,
will migrate from Vermont
in September
to winter in the broad-leaved forests of Southeastern Mexico.
The fourth generational Monarch caterpillar,
after engorging itself with milkweed,
transforms itself through a wondrous metamorphosis
into a beautiful butterfly with fiery stained glass wings,
and flies
thousands of miles,
meeting millions of other monarchs
in a grove of Oxymel Fir trees
in the cool high mountains of Central America.
Spotted Salamanders emerge during spring rains
from their long hibernation
after spending the winter underground,
traveling to vernal pools to mate.
These are but a microcosm of life
that travels through different ecosystems annually.
Species don’t see divisions,
only possibilities that evolve day and night.
