alter to the Virgin of Guadalupe during Christmas in Tepakán, Yucatán, México
WINTER SOLSTICE & THE ONE THING

During this Winter Solstice I reflected on what it means to be a consciousness residing in a biological body exactly here, now, Planet Earth, beginning another annual cycle. In my 72 years I've come to suspect that over the past thousands of years those philosophers and mystics were right who believed this: That the Universe and everything in it, including thought, feeling and the Spirit that summons it all forth, is just One Thing. This is what the monists believe -- people like the ancient Stoics, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, plus Eastern religions tend toward it in varying degrees.

In that context, for a long time I've sensed that other living things and -- irrational as it seems --their communities, such as forests and marshes, and maybe non-living entities like crystals, mountains, the oceans, even clouds, on and on, all manifest some kind of spiritual presence, maybe even some level of consciousness. On this Winter Solstice, I was so moved by the notion of being part of such a spiritual symphony that for half a second the wild idea occurred to me that maybe I should stand beside the stone hut, speak with a strong voice into the surrounding forest, and formally invite those spirits and consciousness around me to know me better, to enter me if they wished, and to become more entangled with me.

But then I remembered that in the One Thing already we are all together, already absolutely mutually entangled, on a certain level almost as in the image atop this page, real flowers arranged with plastic ones, traditions ancient and new, all heartfelt, gorgeous and transcendent. And all we separate-feeling entities of the Universe need to do to communicate with one another and exchange feelings is to pay attention to one another, and to experience one another in many ways.

If you hug the trunk of a large tree, maybe you'll feel for yourself how you're entangling with that tree's spirit, just maybe.