Goodbyes

Those last moments together become suspended and frozen in time when we say goodbye. Big, hot sensations and a choking lump overwhelming the throat . The mysteriousness of life saturates the space as we look past the eyes to the souls behind them. Lots of questions flash through the mind about our destiny, chance and fate.

What will the next days, weeks and months hold for us on our separate, but connected journey?

When I see you again who will I be? Will life harden or soften me in the time in between?

And then there is that unsettling emptiness after the departure. A little numb, a little sad; the one left behind returns to the duties of the day while thinking about the talks, the experiences, and the exchanges. The last minute phone calls at the airport seem like a desparate attempt to reassure the connection through space and distance.

Lots of space. Lots of silence. Longing and love, love and longing go together in that Sanskrit chant, “Radhe govinda, govinda radhe.”

That is the WAY of it.

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Co-existence of Opposites: Blaaah, coooo, blaaah, coooo…

There is a line in an ancient yogic Sanskrit text that goes something like this:

“How is it POSSIBLE that we have forgotten our connectedness, and are pretending to be separate?”

How is it possible? Well, it just is.

And I am sure that even after experiencing a day of unity and camaraderie like yesterday, Obama Day, we may still experience some separateness and isolation today. It is not wrong, it is not bad — it is simply the way it FEELS sometimes on this planet of duality. We have become accustomed to our way of seeing reality and believing the illusion of surface appearances. Part of life’s variety of experience.

Last week , several times actually, I was woken up by the sound of my neighbor vomiting.

Blaaah! Silence. Blaaaaaaah! Silence.

Sound travels freely and easily here in silence of the jungle, and between thatched roof cabins. I lay awake staring at wood beams that are part of my roof. Then, after a minute, in the quiet space between his retching, emerged another completely opposite sound: Coooooo. Soft and comforting. Cooooo…

The sounds began to alternate rhythmically like a call and response chant in a passing parade: Blaaaah! Silence. Coooo. Silence. Blaaaah. Silence. Cooooo. Silence…

The sounds were impeccably timed and so unusual in their seemingly opposite qualities, that the experience took on a surreal quality for me. I recalled music I had heard on a contrived nature sounds CD I bought years ago at a CVS drugstore.

After a while, the vomiting stopped, and so did the song of the bird. Silence again.

Being the pensive type individual I am, and always searching for meaning in the raw, strange, and sweet moments of life, I felt the co-existence of opposites here on my planet.

The sun is coming up. And night would surely fall.

There is some security in that. It is something we can rely on.

Befriend the Opposites

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