The Fullness of Emptiness

I had such an interesting experience this morning. I was gazing out my window and something very white caught my eye. It appeared quite small and distant. I had never noticed it before amidst the trees in the woods about our home.

After some attention to this "object", I realized it was indeed empty space between leaves of trees and that I was actually viewing "nothing".
And yet, in seeing this object as something, then realizing it was nothing real, only my perception of something; I felt I had stumbled unknowingly upon a great truth: the fullness of emptiness.

I felt I had experienced an awakening of sorts; something that mystics try to talk about but say words cannot describe. Words are only signs to point. And so they can't describe. Nor shall I be so presumptuous as to try.

All I can say is that a saying ascribed to Zen Buddhism now makes a little more sense to me. "At the beginning of your spiritual practice mountains are mountains and trees are trees. As you progress further on the Path mountains are no longer mountains and trees are no longer trees. But at the conclusion of your Buddhist career, on becoming Enlightened, mountains are once again mountains and trees again simply trees."

I certainly do not intend to imply I am Enlightened. I simply think this morning I caught a glimpse of the fullness that is emptiness. Or to express it another way, I caught a glimpse of the emptiness that is fullness. Yet another, the reality of emptiness.

Nature Experience

After three days of being a shut-in due to an overdose of a dilation medication for an eye exam, I am feeling somewhat hungry and empty of my usual intake of spiritual nourishment received by walking about Stepping Stones. I know what medication I need; to be outside working and piddling about the land I love. But that cannot be for now.

I am reminded of a painting that I bought to hang upon the fireplace at my previous home in the metroglobulus. (I know, Spell-Check, that metroglobulus is not in your dictionary but it is in mine. My made up word means that maze of concrete, asphalt, buildings, manicured lawns and superficiality of people and things of a large metropolis....yeah, you did not mind that word; however, metropolis is not descriptive enough of the emptiness that exists there while at the same time there is the over stimulation of the senses to trick one into believing that one is living and thereby feels as though one is truly alive.)

Back to the painting: it was entitled "Nature Experience" by Celeste Holmes (I believe that is correct). My take on the painting was the very thing that I was trying to escape upon moving to Stepping Stones; the experiencing of nature through glass represented by a dragonfly (in western culture a creature with sinister connotations while in eastern cultures, particularly Japan, it is imbued with positive qualities like happiness) on a window pane as the focal point in the painting amidst an abstract representation of a metropolis of angular buildings of glass.

Here at Stepping Stones I am surrounded by so much of nature's beauty but due to the dilation of my pupils, I must remain inside my darkened house, viewing the beauty through dark sunglasses which leaves me feeling detached, isolated and alone. Cold and apart from nature, as depicted in the painting, feelings from which I need escape.

I am truly a child of nature. With the awe and wonder of a child I usually walk about Stepping Stones in a trancelike state receiving nourishment from its vibrant abundance. Even sitting inside, before a partially undraped set of windows, I can suckle the nectar of the Rose of Sharon, the lantana, or a wildflower just like the multicolored butterfly I see flitting about the blossoms outside my window. Perhaps a dragonfly will do me the favor of presenting itself upon the window's pane.

Though experienced through glass, I am uplifted by the life cycles I see happening before me and I am satiated for now, until once again I can wander about like the butterfly or perhaps a dragonfly amidst the various plants and trees using all of my senses, not just what is visible through glass, to be suckled by the spiritual kinship that I have as a part of nature. That is, for me, Nature Experience.