Sit Spot, Day 13

Sat 9:45-10:15 tonight. Cloudy night, no stars visible. The clouds reflected the lights of the surrounding towns back down on the land, illuminating everything faintly.

Stalking past the chicken coop, I suddenly became aware that someone was watching me. It was as if there was a thick bubble all around this other being, and I was about to bump into it. I stood very still for a few minutes, and after a while I heard rustling in the compost bin about 15 feet away from me. I listened for a bit - skunk? rat? mole? The sound was intermittent and fairly quiet, so probably a small rodent, but at certain noises my mind began to generate images of a small rabid mammal seconds away from running at my ankles. I watched during these episodes of fear as my adrenaline rushed, and I imagined waves of vibrating energy moving out from me, probably alerting every other creature around that I was fearful.

Then a tool came to mind that sometimes does at opportune times. I imagined a perfect, flat spiderweb in the air connecting me to the creature in the compost and the trees and plants and everyone else around. We all were its anchor points, so we all needed to hold it in place properly. When I am in a frightened state (or, more often, a self-centered, mindless state), I am pulling and yanking on the part of the web I am supposed to be supporting, throwing it all out of balance.

Once this image of the communal spiderweb came to me, it instantly helped me to quiet my roaring thoughts and remember my responsibilities toward everyone around me - not just to my own faulty drive for self-preservation. My fear subsided quickly, and I felt myself growing smaller and quieter, almost becoming invisible, becoming part of the landscape.

I often shy away from this tool when it returns to me for exactly this reason - it never fails to remind me that I am not as significant as I like to imagine myself to be. It is this reminder in particular that jolts me out of my tornado of circling thoughts and plops me right into whatever moment I happen to be in. Because if I am not the center of everything, if I am only one small part with a shared responsibility toward everything else, that means that I have to actually pay attention to what others are doing around me, and ensure I am maintaining my proper place in the community.

I took my shoes and socks off and stalked back towards the house when I was done, but felt a pull to stop at the apple tree. I looked up in the misty night, and felt once again that sensation of being a tree rooted in the ground, arms lifted out and up to the sun. What a pure expression of life, a direct expression of everything we have to offer! I could feel my feet rooted in the earth, imagined my arms, my whole being, lifted up in love and celebration and gratitude toward the sun.

What would the world be like if humans could live as trees do? Sending our roots down through whatever kind of soil we find ourselves in, accepting all the nourishment available to us, and directing all our life energy toward that which nourishes us, be it the sun, creator, community, humanity....toward what we most cherish?