Golden Hollow

 

Just below your sternum and above your belly there’s a fallow valley, and an ancient forest with a clearing, and in the clearing a ring of mushrooms surrounding a circle of stones, and there a fire pit where we can gather before crackling flames to study the physics of miracles. We will be so busy with wonder and gratitude that we have no time for outrage.

Along the woodland path that leads here grow tiny blue forget-me-nots. When you gaze into the infinitesimal bindhu at the center of each blossom, waves of clarity from the farthest rim of our galaxy gaze back at you. Some wanderers never make it to our gathering, because they are lost in the intergalactic darshan of tiny flowers. But perhaps this is their work, for when one is lost in the higher mathematics of Beauty, one knows that judging others is the root of dis-ease, and forgiveness is the nectar of healing. Therefore, wherever you may be on the path, fall into the golden hollow at the core of your heart, for there you have no enemies, and nothing was ever “wrong.”

When you find this tiny chamber in your hridayam, which contains all the stars in the sky, my smile will arise in you, and your smile will arise in me. And each photon of sunlight in our blood will say, "Thank you, friend." This is how we are absolved, forgiven, and transfigured by each others emptiness.

Now if you have followed the meandering path and gotten sufficiently lost to find this circle of mushrooms at the center of creation, you can sit with me and listen to the hum of ancient bones buried in the loam. Then we will be certain that our feathered, finned, and furry four-footed friends on earth are as powerful as the seraphim, the principalities of heaven.

What do you learn from the anointed animal of your own physiology? Above all, never concentrate. When the mind wanders during contemplation, don't chase after it. Let it explore the farthest edge of interstellar amazement, and mingle in the atoms of a thistle.

Immerse your intellect in the marvelous science of the belly, which is more scrumptious than love itself. Our teachers all dwell here, gurgling and murmuring verses of the Rig Veda never yet written down. Each of them has one eye closed, the other open like a primordial well of tears. This well is where all worlds are born.

Even when you have as many thoughts as there are zeros after the one in the round number of infinity, your meditation is still silent and hollow. Do you know why? Because you are not your mind. You are the space through which it wanders.

You are the motionless green journey of a seed spiraling into the death of its flower. Therefore you must burst into blossom and let your unshod mind on diamond hooves roam unbridled to the edge of time, without making the slightest effort to lead it home.

As long ago as your grandmothers can sing, as far ahead as your unborn children can dream, your mind is the refulgence of one simple thing: this Now. It cannot be distracted because anywhere it goes, here you are. No need to focus, just observe. Be the Witness, the patient Mother of crazy children.

Through the sacred art of listening, you will know what the owl knows at midnight, and see the new snakeskin shimmering under the old one, and feel how a moth wing feels as it enters the flame, and get rapt in the ineffably finespun fabric of otherness. Wiggle your toes in the mud of Imbolc, and mine will wiggle too. For non-duality is not enough. Oneness is entanglement. This is how your power to bless keeps expanding forever, and the dance of Andromeda begins in a twist of your DNA.

Why is there no journey? Because the beginning and end are both contained in this breath.

Painting by Sue Wookey