https://www.facebook.com/groups/thepossibility/

Or my email is thilakshan@msn.com

I am very curious of speaking with you revolution, wish there was a easy way to get in contact *crosses her fingers hoping*

March 23, 2010

I walked through the greens of early spring. I came through the woods to two lakes. I continued on one of my favorite paths up the mountain. I carried a quartz sphere, so I had to tread carefully so I wouldn’t drop it.

I appreciated the greens of the spring forest. I had just drunk tea with pine needles in it. There is something remarkably nice about walking through the pine trees after having drunk plenty of their oils. I felt a lot of appreciation for, and closeness to the trees.

This appreciation helped me to see the immediate shift of plants on the mountain. I usually see the lovely cacti that are indigenous to our lone mountain. However, this time I saw the depth of green in the moss. I also noticed what I think was dear antler moss, a type of lichen that takes decades to grow just a few millimeters. I took time to cherish it.

I continued up the mountain, drinking in the beauty as I passed the large quarry and came to one of my favorite spots. I sat in the sun and thought of my intention. I thought of how I would make my allegiance to the truth in my heart. I couldn’t form my intention or my words quite right. On top of that I was afraid of the change I could feel, as I looked out over the trees, and dipped into the void. Perhaps today was not to be the day? Determined not to speak or vow idly, I continued further up the mountain, to a spot in the shade. There I sat awhile and waited.

Then my inspiration came. My hand on the mountain, I thought of my previous times here, how old the mountain was, how strong its soul and heart must be. I asked the mountain to be my witness. I spoke into cracks in the rock. I could feel the stones still warm within from the day’s sunshine. “I swear allegiance to the truth of equanimity in my heart.” Then into another rock, “I swear allegiance to the peacefulness of the void.”

I felt uplifted, touching the mountain affectionately with my hand. I continued speaking to the mountain, asking it to bear witness and to remember my words for me if I ever get too old to remember. I could not help smiling and laughing aloud as my words grew steadier, clearer, and stronger as I spoke into the fissures in the mountain. I made my way further up, noting a rock that was covered in another lovely lichen. I crouched down along the rock face that still seemed to flow as the lava that made it millions of years ago, and spoke into another crack.

Then I heard what I thought was the wind through a trash bag. Still crouching low,I looked around for the source of noise, and I saw a bird. A black-headed vulture. I stared at it. It was very close… maybe 30 feet away, and very large. Very black, with yellow under its wings. The sun was at my back, placing me between the bird and the sun. I watched it for some time as it sat on a dead tree, stood out against the distant trees across the quarry, stood out against the blue sky and the vast expanse of the surface of the mountain. All in the golden light of the setting sun.

I made the same noise it had made, a kind of grunt, and it flew around to my left and sat awhile on the rocks above me, watching. I continued watching it, thinking of my vows, of the change I had made in myself. I spoke into the crack in the mountain again. I said, “my old life is gone now” and I moved slightly, and the bird flew away.

Then I walked a short distance down the mountain, stopping to admire the lichens on the rocks, and to touch and appreciate the red plants that grow through the cracks, and the moss. I needed to pee, so I stepped through a narrow crack between some huge quarried stones, and I was delighted to see that someone had built a little stone wall there, so I had a perfect bathroom to use. There was also a piece of trash, a plastic bottle someone had left, and I picked it up.

When I stepped back, I turned and looked again. Where I had just walked, a narrow space, a feather was sticking up, laying neatly and large across the rocks and straw and moss. Surely it had not been there before, I would have seen it. Yet I knew it was a vulture’s feather, and I was reluctant to touch it, fearing germs. I squatted by it for awhile, admiring its beauty, and considering it a gift. Finally I decided to embrace it, though it seemed irrational, and I took it in my hand.

I continued walking down, a plastic bottle and my crystal ball in my left hand, and a foot-long feather held daintily in my right. Fortunately I found all the easy walkways down, so I didn’t have to face any treacherous steps with no hands. I disposed of the bottle, crossed the street, walked past the lakes and back into the woods I had come through.

All along I thought of what I had just experienced. And I also thought of the meaning of a vulture. I know they are scavengers, and I was a little disappointed when I saw one during what I knew it was a very significant moment in my life. I had wished for a hawk, perhaps, or another beautiful bird (yet the bird I saw was beautiful, I will not say otherwise, I thought he looked as if he wore a black robe, with yellow feathers underneath). I mostly thought of what this change would mean for me, and felt comforted by my awareness of truth, equanimity, and the void.

I decided to complete the trail, instead of going back the way I had come. It felt right. Further down the trail, I saw a family of dear scamper away through an open boggy field. I smiled. Shortly after that I caught my sandal on a root. The root drug my sandal right off my foot. As I put my shoe back on, I noticed some mica on the ground. I wondered what it meant, if in my stumbling I might somehow find better insight. I cherished the mica for a moment, a stone I could look through. I picked some up as I thought of the philosopher’s stone.

I walked a few more paces and I heard a little sound and looked to my left. I thought it was a rabbit at first, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the underbrush at dusk, I saw a hawk eating a squirrel. Maybe ten feet from me, and I had passed much closer. The squirrel still moved, and squeaked and tried to run away. The hawk held him in his claws and took bite after bite from his flesh and guts. At that distance, I could hear the sound of the flesh and tendons snapping back to the carcass when it was yanked away by the bird’s beak. The bird kept eating, and looking back at me darkly, making a bigger and bigger pile of the squirrel’s fur as it tore its still-moving body apart.

I walked on. Now I had a lot more respect for the vulture. Mostly he just eats what he finds, without killing anything. I also realized that my hesitance to take the feather was foolishness. Even as I had looked at it in the straw and rocks and moss on the mountain, I had known I would have taken a hawk’s feather immediately, somehow feeling it “cleaner.” Yet now I saw the falsehood in all my thinking. The vulture helps to clean the forest. My biases were foolish. Now I had a simple, grounded lesson in equanimity, or at least in setting aside my prejudices.

During the drive home, Van Morrison sang “Astral Weeks,” his beautiful song about being born again in a different world, and being a stranger to this world.

Excellent

Power: we have so much of it…..inside ourselves. I am constantly amazed at the creativity and inspiration that is accessible to each of us. To me, this is the real power that should be cultivated.

Power that demeans, oppresses, destroys, discards, taints, etc. is along the lines of Evil. And the presence of Evil is soul-destroying beyond many other sorrows.

Lady Nyo