To find the meaning you may be looking for it becomes helpful to go on a journey an adventure. This past January my adventure took me to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, MA. Although I have been living in the sunshine of Florida for many years I still enjoy one cold weekend a year in the Berkshires. Unexpectedly I choose the one which had a minus 9 degree reading this time around.
Part of this journey was a writing workshop with Laraine Herring. The highlight for me was a writing assignment that asked us to include a black jacket in the story. I spent hours, many half sheets of paper and countless writing locations and times. Nothing inspiring arrived. Finally the last morning while being pleasantly warmed in the sauna after the coldest night of the year a spontaneous visualization sprung into my awareness.
……. It began as I was walking past the closet in my house in Florida I noticed all of the clothing was gone except for one shiny tuxedo looking black jacket hanging exactly in the middle of the closet. As my mind grasped the emptiness of the closet in contrast to the black jacket I noticed almost hidden in one corner a white shirt and a white pair of suspenders. All at once as I inched a bit closer to the black jacket I felt arms of energy like tentacles from an octopus grabbing at me and trying to pull me into the jacket. I instinctively resisted and held my ground as I noticed the white shirt sliding closer to the black jacket. Suddenly the tentacle arms stopped. Everything changed in that moment.
I glimpsed an image of myself wearing the white shirt, suspenders and black jacket feeling invincible and all-knowing. Images and insights beyond my understanding lit up and faded in waves before both my eyes and my mind’s eye. I lost the awareness of this being a visualization or dream, lost the sense of being in the sauna and awoke in a pool of perspiration with the towel I was sitting on soaked as well. The entire time I was sitting upright in a cross-legged position.
The mystical teachings I retained may be real or imagined but they are the foundation for the insights and practical innovations that will fill this blog. When I go into this closet it is like going through a doorway into another dimension; as Rod Stirling noted another dimension of sight and mind. In this closet things just appear mystically which is not just seeing past or future but “seeing” the present. Seeing reality rather than “my” interpretation ie my slanted view of what is happening.
I sat for a short time going with the moment. Dropping all resistance to thought and sensation. Just accepting what was and enjoying the impermanence. Now its the next moment and doing this again and again and once again – contented ……
Spiritual Gravity 