Category Archives: places/shelter

‘On the Shore’

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~ fifteen minute timed writing with a found starting phrase during a writing jam hosted by Daniel Ari, Richmond CA ~ October 23rd, 2011

On the shore, lapping up, the waters, amongst the grit of the sand and other things that are under foot. The grit under foot ~ stay there. It’s a visceral experience of staying with right now that feeds me, that calls me, beckons me to not divert the energy through thought, but to stay with experience, the connection with sensate beingness that is ground, ever present like the heat in my face now. A kind of flush that rises up as I sit with my own tendency to shift all too easily and quickly with what is, to what could be and now I recognize how dissatisfying that really is.

The questions are right there waiting, waiting to pop through, bleed through, but this time I’m experimenting with not giving them energy and instead going back to the shore of what I’m sitting with right now, the grit, wet and cool and coarse, under my feet ~ now anticipating the bell [the end of the writing period] and remembering we have more time in this round. Ah, I’d already gone into just a hint of measuring myself ~ good to see that it arises in me, too, not just others putting the measure out, putting the measure on me.

These grains of sand on the shore are right here under foot. Sand crystal touching cells of my skin communicating with no meaning needed to be conveyed, just being there. I stand and my legs meet my body, torso, heart, and the cosmos simultaneously. The peace of just being with, this feed me so deeply. Little else seems to feed me in this same way.

I am released in this release of being anywhere else than where I am right now ~ the belly both alive and on fire with itself, with the emotions there waiting to be digested, felt, and what else? I cant thing of how to say or write it, but I keep writing just as I stay right with what is calling me to be present here on the shores of feeling. And the questions lap up again and again, but they are gentle waves, not overwhelming. I can hear.

here is where i am

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if here is where i am, then what kind of shelter is needed in that place?

i’ve been in a process of ‘finding’ my next place to live. as one part contemplative, one part human animal nature, and one part quantum consciousness, this process has its confusions and expectations, its turns and returns, and its surrenders and revelations. what is the impulse behind this search, this inherent instability, this very human predicament to go looking for something ‘out there,’ something ‘better’ perhaps, or something that could hold the future?

shelter, for me, is an art form, just as is life. it’s good to remind myself that, ultimately, the survival drive behind much of this life comes from a legacy of the human condition itself, from the sea of ancestral waters washing up on my genetic shores. the actual function of my own being is something of a different order, a mystery of the quantum field itself responding and giving rise to aliveness and spirit intelligence.

‘finding’ might not be the verb in order here when it comes to sheltering the one part quantum consciousness. listening maybe? communing, very likely. simply being and observing and surrendering, all of these. i hear all the animal nature sounds around me as i pause in this way. that human animal nature can be ‘sheltered’ in the the surrendering to the quantum consciousness aspect of life. it’s possible that the one part contemplative is the actual communication synergy between these two other parts.

yes, here is where i am.