From Nothing
The clouds and blue are playing today and the temperature is still in the low 50's - a beautiful morning that holds a lot of shared time with friends not to be forgotten in the fullness of life. It's cool, quiet and blue grey this Sunday morning. And life is full of changes.
In the middle of the shifts that happen, people being born, people passing through, people shifting their capacities because the equipment has been so well used - the invitation to reflect opens. One can never know just what will bring a day into focus - but these things tend to be the common events that have the effect of stopping for a moment.
A routine of being in silence for at least a few minutes - 20 or so - every day, is another way to enter a space that allows for the unseen and unheard to enter consciousness. That is something that is truly amazing.
Problems find answers, emotions get tamed, the body moves into gratitude - all through the practice of entering silence. Yes, disturbance can also be a part of the experience and if fortunate, the disturbance will wake up a part of one's awareness that needs tending. Buried in the pace of life and the demands of responsibilities just to live day-to-day can be an obstacle to the path toward settling into who you are at the core.
A friend sent a book of writings that were taken from reflections that arose out of the conscious mind that tapped into something he called the unconscious. At first, the idea seemed impossible - how does the conscious ever get to the unconscious? By defnition, there is no longer the unconscious! But in silence, reading the page of words, something made an impact - where did these observations come from and how did they reach him? Then, realizing that the ideas themselves were never a part of any plan, teaching, or other framework for sharing the soulful - it was clear: that the sharing itself was beauty. It was a way to deepen both self and a thread to help another deepen. It all came from nothing, really.
Then, the realization that just about everything comes from that same place - nothing. From there, something.
Whether it is an action that creates an object or a collective of people; whether it is for a purpose to provide, or a purpose to inspire - from nothing an organization emerges, a service that is needed is created, a melody to inspire others is shared, and it goes on and on. No thing. Nothing. Thing that can be seen, heard, felt.
The journey takes us to the same questions - where and when does one meet the self in others? What does it take to get there? What is one's purpose? Who is this true self? These are all the same questions, really. And the answer is one that likely lies in the space we can refer to as "from nothing.".