Perfect Happiness

I am about 4 years old. I am crouched down, like a bushman, (bent knees and flat feet) and watching an ant lions’ (Insect Family Myrmeleontidae) cone in the sand. The sun is warm on my back. The ant lion larvae make a cone shaped pit to trap ants. The sand in the cone shape is extremely fine and when the ant falls into the cone, it can’t get up the sides of the cone because the sand is so fine that it just slides down, taking the ant with it. At the bottom of the cone, under the sand lies the ant lion in wait. When it feels the sand sliding and the ant falling, it dives out from under cover and grabs the ant. I sorrow for the ant, but somehow I know that its purpose is to be dinner for the ant lion larvae. Those larvae will grow into a delicate adult with a slender body and gauzelike wings that resembles a dragonfly. Nature is perfect.

I am now about 8 years old. I am once again, sitting like a bushman, watching a sun gazer revel in the sun. It lifts is face to the sun and stares at that glowing orb for minutes at a time. The rocks are warm and the sun is beating down on us. We, the sun worshipers, sit still for hours, absorbing light. The sun gazer is a type of lizard covered in horny scales. Its official name is Cordylus giganteus. It rolls itself up into a defensive ball when under threat. The skin of the sun gazer looks sort of golden in colour but it you sit up very close and look at it very carefully every scale has the whole spectrum of colour in it, like a rainbow. I am blissfully happy.

As difficult as our lives may have seemed, it’s always possible to find memories of perfect joy. More often than not, those memories don’t include other people and the feelings they arouse are the feelings of pure love. If you watch a spectacular sunset or see nature in all its glory, it gives you the same physical sensation as when you are with a loved one. It’s that slight breathlessness and sense of awe that seems to grow like a glorious ball of light in the middle of your chest.

If you are having a bad day or week, try and spend some time outside. Go and find the wonder in nature and just be there for a while. I can almost guarantee you will find some peace. It is much easier to remember that everything has its perfect place and purpose in the world if you see it in nature. In nature, everything has a place and a part to play in the biodiversity of life. You are part of nature and you too, have a perfect place and purpose to your existence. You don’t need to question the validity of your existence you only need to be. As Lao-Tse wrote: “The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.”

Rewind, redo

I got up really early this morning and took my dogs for their usual walk. I was so glad to be up early on a Sunday - I knew we could walk in freedom and not worry too much about other peoples dogs. Unfortunately, Emma, my black German Shepard, doesn't like other dogs much so walking her is always a bit of a challenge.

So there we were, lobbing the ball and having a wonderful old time of it when I spied a man arriving in a 4X4 with some dogs in the back. I duly leashed my two and waited patiently for this man to move off with his dogs. Of course they were unruly and rushed straight at me. I warned the dogs first and then having no luck shouted to their owner. He ignored me and I flew into a suddenly rage! There I was trying to be nice and now I was being ignored. I swore. Of course, it's at the beach and the sound carried perfectly to his ears and he swung around and started swearing at me. In fact he began striding towards me purposefully, as if to really climb into me but then backed off when he realized his dogs were getting too close to mine.

I burned about the whole episode for the rest of the walk! I ran the incident over in my head and defended my position in any number of ways. Eventually I saw the man coming back. I duly leashed my dogs again. Then I remembered the adage - "You can always go back and hit replay".

I waited until he had his dogs in the car and then I strode up to him. He wound his window down - getting ready for the fight - and I said: "I would just like to apologise for swearing" before he could say anything. All the fight went out of him, and of me. We had a mutual apology session and he went on his way.

Thank God for 'rewind'! You can really always go back and fix something. All it takes is a bit of humility. Don't waste time being angry if you can possibly help it. If you already did the anger thing, remember, you can go back and change it. Do it as soon as possible. It will all turn out ok!

The Observer

It's nearly dusk. I am standing next to a very tall man. We are in my grandmothers garden. I'm not too sure who he is in my memory, but I know that I like him. He is pushing a long thin pole into a hornets nest in the palm tree. I think to myself that he is being really silly. Doesn't he realize that the wasps will get angry and chase us? Suddenly the wasps begin diving down towards us, their irate buzzing loud in my ears! The next moment I am dangling in the air while this man holds me by the arm, running like the blue blazes to escape the swarming wasps torpedoing down on us. We make it to the kitchen. I see the screen door snap shut and hear the thud of the wasps bodies hit the screen. We are safe and I begin to squeal with laughter and delight. That was sooo exciting!

This memory popped into my mind one day and I wasn't sure if it was real. It seemed so strange to have such a grown up mind in a small child. Was it perhaps a dream? I asked my father if he could remember if anything like that ever happened. He was shocked. It had been him. "But how could you remember that?" he asked. "You weren't more than eleven months old!"

How indeed. Through this memory I discovered that we have a part of ourselves that never truly engages in the act of living. That part just watches and observes. The Observer. That part of us is ageless and wise. It's a part of our soul that isn't emotionally attached to the events of our lives. It gives us observations and helps us to explore the terrain of living. The more in touch with The Observer we are, the less complicated it all seems.

When you are in the process of an experience, good or bad, you are present in both your emotional state and that of The Observer. Why would this be?

What if the mind is a massive recording device? What if the soul is using the brain or recording device as a tool in the process of self exploration? The more data we gather through the process of living a life, the more information we have about ourselves as souls. The observer might be the link to the soul - the part of the soul that is in the process of gathering information. What if we were born simply to self explore and then to share that new knowledge with the Whole of existence or God. It's the perfect vehicle for self expansion.

I think of every human being as a fraction of God, moving out beyond the event horizon and discovering more about itself than known before and then coming back to source and adding that new knowldege to the whole. As such, there can be no right or wrong way to do this living experience. It's just an experience and you can choose to view it any way you want. However you live, the knowledge will be taken to the whole and hopefully add value there. So maybe we are supposed to be taking risks and throwing ourselves into our lives with everything we have. If we are to add value, we need to step into the unknown and follow dreams and passions - they are the trajectory line given us before we left on the journey of life. If you fall off the trajectory line, you will still bring back new knowledge, just not the knowledge you originally intended to discover. I think we have to be careful of repeating the same trip over and over again though - so back to taking risks.

My message today? Go and take a risk. God loves risk takers, they bring new knowledge with them.