When Vividness Dawns: Or Cutting Through the Bullshit to Engage My Life

Then the vividness dawns. Grains of sand to galaxies shimmer with energy. The person on the corner, the siren of the passing ambulance, the thoughts tumbling through my mind, the hawk sailing through the blue, everything is one unnameable substance appearing as the endless diversity of creation.

This happens for no particular reason. In the middle of daily routine my awareness opens and the richness of life floods forward. My mind continues to play with its timeless questions: Who am I? Why I am here? Where am I going? But these ruminations become as transparent as air. So do the petty fears, the grand hopes, the hurtful criticisms, the inflating praise, the outbreaks of war and peace, the gains and losses. All the bullshit pressing in on me with such urgency and importance and turbulence, in an instant, is seen through as clearly as still water.

Instead, the radiance of being shines in every particle and wave, in every sound and silence and every space between. The jogger in the distance, flying hair blazing as she runs, back-lit by the dawning sun; the fresh dog shit in the dirt gleams; the cafe chatter sings; the hot coffee is nectar; the memories of countless mornings in far flung places on the globe shine with rediscovered vitality. From nowhere, emotion rises within me and the tears spill.

There's no reason for this, no particular significance that can be tagged and placed in the box of reason or meaning or purpose. To name it anything, enlightenment, awakening, revelation, hallucination would be ridiculous. To invent a technique to access it and sell in the marketplace would be ludicrous. It's just life in its rawness and power. It's what I live for.