While nearing home on this morning's walk, I unexpectedly found myself on an odd treasure hunt of sorts. I came upon a Coors can, a Coke can, a Marlboro pack and a DQ cup all flattened then followed by a red fabric book mark in that order. Each item lay ten to twenty feet apart at the sidewalk's edge. After the Coors and Coke cans my first thought was 'Am I being informed as to how people flatten themselves?' That was odd then came the cigarettes, fast food and a book mark.
Immediately I was reminded of the ways folks calm, relax and anesthetize themselves because they've left their bodies and have forgotten what it's like to be in the experience of earthly life without tuning out. (We know embodiment as kids even if it's for a short time then family and cultural messages, unexpected trauma, an educational system valuing competition and grades over bodily experience and heart prompt us to tune out and disconnect.)
To ensure my own "medication" was in this morning mix within feet of the book mark was a Starbuck's cup symbolic of the coffee I drink.
To make this mystery even more mysterious, I suddenly remembered that as I made the turn home about five blocks back I noticed an animal in the middle of Natchez Trace. I wished for paper with which to pick it up as traffic passed in both lanes. Diagonally to me there it was paper and of course paper too is flat.
There was so much traffic that I stood on the sidewalk and sent blessings of appreciation to whatever this animal was for its life and all of its kin. I'm accustomed to placing dead animals in the grass, but with this one I thought I was okay with leaving it because it was.... yes, very flat.
Yet I wasn't okay and suddenly traffic ceased. Paper in hand I picked up what I discovered was a bunny's body and left its dear still furry one-dimensional self tucked in nearby shrubs.
I blessed it and felt blessed by it then walked on mindful that last month on two separate synchronistic occasions I came upon dead rabbits in the road. Each time I moved them aside then read about rabbit when I got home. Yet this morning I had already forgotten its symbolism.
Within minutes of blessing this bunny, I found the flattened objects.
The bookmark reminds me of life's winding path and the Good Red Road to which many Native Americans refer when walking life in balance and relationship with the Creator. I'm mindful in my journey that when I'm out of balance I myself am 'flattened' and end up exhausted and collapse.
How is it we're given these amazing bodies with hearts, lungs, cells and more that work with and for us without our even asking and yet we neglect and push them so? Okay so I shouldn't speak for you but that's what I've done. And although my coffee vice is down to a cup a day I still have spent much of my life excelling at not listening to my insides and for so long not even knowing how. In turn I've lived on auto-pilot in constant motion outwardly and internally, thinking, doing, thinking, doing, out of balance, ignoring my life.
Upon reaching home I read again of rabbit and immediately recognize its message. The Egyptian hieroglyph for rabbit is associated with the concept of being.
This was perfect for when over doing I neglect being as well as my inner Being. This in turn leads to tired, tuned out and flat.
There is a flatness to life and living when we're going through the motions and aren't fully engaged. And maybe that's another reason people are prone to addiction. They're trying to escape flat, while longing for a higher state, not realizing flat isn't really flat.
Just as with the objects I found, there is a depth and dimension to apparent flat things. That dimension is revealed when we cultivate awareness, learn to listen and slow down to sense, hear and feel that deeper, higher dimension. From this place of being, we sense our Inner Being as well as the beautiful Being of things around us even the things appearing flat on the Good Red Road that's Earth.
Imagine the Shift of Being and Seeing.
-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 6 April 2012
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