Sharing Existence

With All That Exists

Azalia

Every life and death of stars, molecules, atoms, biological forms, mountains, gasses,... Everything.

Cosmos

Everything that exists is connected and part of this universe. Can you feel what the gazelle is feeling at this moment while being chased by a lion? Can you feel the explosive power of galaxies colliding?

Fig

Can you hear your heart beating? Can you feel the oxygen molecules passing through the membranes of your lungs into your bloodstream. Can you feel your diaphragm muscles pulling your lungs open to draw in each fresh breath?

Tulip

Can you feel the tension in muscles and joints fading as you enter a state of calm relaxation? Focus solely on a phrase or sound until all senses are silent. If you can do these things, you are at the gateway to all that is, was or ever will be.

Sparkleberry

Your self image, ego, no longer exists in this state of universal awareness. There are no nations or languages. Everything here is all one thought, one entity. This is the beginning and end of all that is. This is the state of being that mystics try to describe and share.

Lassen focused through bare tree branches outside the east stairwell of B building

Imagine existing as all matter and all life forms at once. It can be the most awesome empathic experience one can ever have.

That is a tiny example of sharing existence with all that exists. Okay? Now exhale.

Today’s Video;

Laughing Is Good

Shasta Lake

Up To The Spillway

Shasta Lake

After the rains we had last week, the lake reached a comfortable level. This is good news for our parched state.

Water flows down the spillway

Here is a closer view;

Wet Shasta Dam spillway

Mount Shasta received a fair amount of snow last week, and further accumulation is expected to arrive Sunday.

Mount Shasta March 16

As “they” say; “So far, so good”.

Shasta Dam, Shasta Lake, and Mount Shasta

Today’s Video;

It All Adds Up

Middle Of The Night

Bed Feels Remarkably Good

Ilene’s Christmas cactus

Sometimes I reach a plateau where everything feels right. The sheets are soft and comforting. The woven cloth feels like fleece stroking my skin when I shift my body. Pillow coddles my head as it softly presses against the side of my face.

Wind snapped a tree last Sunday

I notice that the air smells like air. The mixture of tiny bits of everything that has spread a vapor image of its dispersed totality.

This is good. This is how I think reality smells like. I’d consider calling this, “normal”. 

Actually these physical circumstances are optimal and rare in my world.

Hyacinth hiding

There are times when sheets feel coarse like jagged spikes. They tear and poke at my skin between the mattress and the covers.

Same surface 2 different focuses

I sometimes notice that the room air smells like molecular compounds that are bonded together to construct a room and the objects in it. 

The carpet. The drywall and the paint that covers it. The metal lamps. The thermal curtains. The three printers. The television set. The books in the bookcase.

They don't smell like the actual objects, but like the separate components of the materials they are made from.

Dancing tulip with imaginary castanets

The reed basket by the bed smells like the molecules that formed the original plant. (I keep 2 sets of earphones in the basket to listen to the TV when I watch so I don’t disturb my downstairs neighbor)

Yellow iris

There are times the chemical compounds smell alien to my understanding and catalog of common scents. It is what happens to my olfactory information during times of unusual pain.

It's a sweet, cloying, unnatural, chemical toilet, urinal cake, type smell. Vaguely familiar. A blue shade of fragrance. (I think it's nerve signals and sensory information short circuiting simultaneously)

Expressive oak

These worded thoughts insisted I get up and write them down. 

I had been planning to write something to fill the space between pictures I have taken recently. This will do nicely.

Today’s Video;

Wide Weird Wonderful World

It All Comes Down To This

One Simple Truth;

Mmmm Pie

The Rich don’t want to share ‘their’ pie with the people who made it. Selfish behavior.

Dottie’s garden owl

Capitalism is the result of unregulated selfishness. A compulsion to have more than them*

*Them could be family, fellow villagers or in the case of ultra billionaires, everybody.

Wildflowers at the Treehouse

I feel like I have written on this topic before. Starting as far back as the 1960’s.

The ghost of Yogi Berra lives on to remind me,”It’s Deja vu all over again”.

A different Redding view of Mount Shasta

Selfishness is not limited to megalomaniacs. It is part of our survival instinct that remains in the early evolutionary development part of our brains.

Some politicians get their support by appealing to people's inner reptile when they promise to build a wall to keep “those people” from getting our stuff.

Each year I forget the name of this plant

The more evolved parts of our brains have the capability of regulating our primitive reptilian impulses and allow us to understand that we live on a planet teeming with an abundance of living creatures, including ourselves.

Today’s Video;

Life Is Fascinating