Communion

Standing before the ocean, I felt the rhythm of the natural world.

The waves relentlessly marched towards shore. Forming their swells, then peaking and crashing.  All the movement seemed forward and aggressive.

But I looked again as the waves broke. When the frothy wave reached its furthest purchase, it began its return, gently sliding back to the sea. Back to its source.

Crashing forward, sliding back. Forward, back. Repeated endlessly.

Opposed motion, each existing apart from the other, each dependent on the other. The advancing waves would cease if the retreating water did not return, just as the receding movement could not arise without the crashing wave that gives it birth.

This rhythm, this pattern, recurs across the sweep of our endless natural world. It is in the wind and the tide, the trajectory of the sun, the garden out back.  It is embodied in our breath and in the coil of life’s journey.

I often lose this sense of connection and oneness.  Falling away, I am lost and adrift.

But when I take and hold this communion, when the truth of this lives in my bones, I feel safe and at peace.  As I did this day, surrounded by the natural world and the others I love.

Alone

I am alone in this moment.

Empty house. Solitude.

Not lonely, not disconnected or isolated. Just alone.

I have been in crowded rooms, surrounded by familiar faces, and yet nearly undone by a sense of loneliness and disconnection.

Solitude helps me to settle, to center. From that place I can feel the connection to all things- the woods just outside the window, the cloudy evening sky, the bird sailing on.

And the connection with all those who have been truly with me, those who share this sense of unity, those who allow themselves to be open and vulnerable.   The tender filaments of true human connection.

Feeling connected can come in solitude and it can come in company. Not a matter of physical presence.  Spiritual presence.

When I am here, really here, fully and spiritually, I am never isolated, never apart.

Alone, yet never alone.