In moving though the day, we step right over whole worlds in our rush to get to our next waypoint.
I am recalling a great video entitled “Powers of 10” that went from images of a couple lying on a beach to Hubble space telescope images of galaxies. It was an intoxicating meditation.
I have often been amazed by the visual congruence of the very small and the inconceivably large. Both infinites are present to us simultaneously at all times and our consciousness is the bridge between them.
My morning meditation today is about the worlds of the very small. As I sit in a taxi on route to an early morning transatlantic flight, I am considering the universes traveling with me, around me, along-side of me:
- Elements in the air that sustain me;
- the unseen multitudes of microscopic organisms in me, on me, on the seat and in the air;
- the fine structure of glass in the windows;
- photons streaming into my awareness, including the energy of the digital dashboard clock striking the retinas of my eyes;
- the fine detail of tissue, cells, and organelles that are perpetually organized to keep me alive;
- the fibril fabric of the seat beneath me and the finer structures in each fiber;
- the surface of my skin and the diverse life-forms hitching a ride;
- a thought about the complex workings of my brain across synapses and axon fibers engaged as I type this post on my Blackberry, and the even finer chemistry of the electrical fields of mind;
- and the intelligence of blood cells nourishing and sustaining the whole thing.
It’s simply dizzying: Billions of worlds within me, billions of worlds around me, and all of it the stuff of the stars. There is a peace and reassurance I feel in giving a moment’s thought to the dynamic continuum ranging from the incomprehensibly small to the large scale structure of the universe and the relativity of time. All of it suggests a timeless interconnectivity and a profound intimacy.
We are indeed children of the Light and we are never separate from it. I recall Walt Whitman’s wonderful short retort: ” I am multitudes!”
I delight in looking far off to the horizon, to scan the landscape in a panoramic sweep, and gazing up to the heavens at night. From time to time, though, it pays to stop and look down as well, at what’s under foot, at my fingertips, and the teaming communities of energetic exchange and support that I too often fail to notice.
May your day today be a series of recognitions of the tiniest miracles that transform the seemingly ordinary into the extraordinarily magical and mysterious.
Making the Small Things Larger
© Brother Anthony Thomas and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
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