Take flight among the stars

[Ron Tocknell]

We are bound only by our attachment to bonds. We are committed to our bonds not by those who would hold us to them but by our consent to do so.

We can choose to walk in chains and, in so doing, may be inclined to rage against the very chains to which we hold so tightly...

...or we may choose to take flight among the stars, where there is no destination for the flight itself is the goal.

The world in which we live is a Spectacular Speck amid countless Spectacular Specks that make up the infinity we call "The Universe"... largely because we like to give things names. It makes them ours.

And yet communities like this come into being because we are responding to a cry of "Healing needed here!"

Does the Universe need healing? If so, how are we to heal it? Does our Spectacular Speck need healing?

I think infinity can cope with whatever ills it encounters from time-to-time within this eternity... but I'm sure it's grateful for the offer.

Do we need healing? Here, I think, is the crux of the matter. We worry about what we are doing to our planet, our Spectacular Speck. Be mindful, yes. But there is no need to worry. This Speck of ours will survive us. We may clumsily wipe out every living organism on our planet, including ourselves but, in the Great Scheme of things, no real harm will be done.

D H Lawrence once wrote "A bird can fall frozen to the ground without ever having felt sorry for itself". We've no way of knowing the truth of that, of course but it rings true to me. Why should it feel sorry for itself? It has lived and whatever spirit or essence remains will move on.

We fear death and we mourn the departed yet, were we alone in the woodlands, we could fall down dead and our departing would not even disturb the birdsong. Is that because birds are callous? Is it because we are worthless? No, of course not. All living creatures are hard-wired to hang on to life as long as we can because, if we didn't, we'd probably not get around to taking our first breath. This imperative of life is not because death is so terrible or that life is the be-all and end-all (well, the be-all, anyway... death being the end-all). It is simply because we are hard-wired to cherish life.

This fear of death and fear of change is symptomatic of our experience of consciousness. Ah! The cry becomes louder: "Healing needed here!" I think we're getting close. Our experience of consciousness.

Here is the heart of our malaise. Here, all our desires and fears reside. Our love, our hate; our joy, our pain; We cling to our chains so tightly because we fear that to surrender our grip would release us from the joy as well as the pain; the love as well as the hate.

The bonds are not Love but the need to possess the object of our love. The bonds are not joy but the need to pursue it. These bonds are based on fear.

Imagine if you could LOVE without need! Imagine if you could experience JOY without pursuit!

Then you would, indeed, take flight among the stars.