Epiphany…

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Epiphany…

On a crisp morning in near the beginning of spring I started toward the city to find work. I had said that I was going to run down some leads across town. As I approached the bridge that would take me to my prescribed destiny I noticed a marina and a park that I’d seen before but never explored. With their access being the last exit before crossing and with no time constraints, I decided that a minute’s diversion might be ok.

As I began to explore this island planted amid the bustle of city life, I started at the boat launch. Not too many out at 10 on a weekday but there were a few. There where the sea birds and the minnows.
I walked to the end of the pier. There was a good breeze it felt good to be amongst the waves. The clarity of the air and unique smells and sounds made me more aware of how special this moment was. I was glad I stopped if even just for a few minutes.

As I looked across at the boats and wondered about their owners and their travels I noticed the park on the other side of where they lie rhythmically, orderly and patient in their waiting.

I took the scooter out and around to the people side of this sanctuary and parked. Here there was a much longer peer designed to get fishermen out closer to their prey. It was even more convincing in its ability to remind me of the play of the waves and the potential of completely different life swimming freely just below the surface.

Epiphany…

I looked for fish but was hoping for bigger game… none surfaced but I had and have hope that it is there.
I then started toward some kind of memorial in the corner of the large green space in the middle of someone else’s real vision for what I would be doing on this day. It was a large work of art in remembrance of a given event that was traumatizing for the community. It was strangely sad, marking the specific time and with crude statues semi-replicating the event.

I pondered it and the associated inscription. I stood on it and tried to enjoy it but it would have none of that and so I left it to itself to encourage mourning long after everything had been buried.

Just around the corner though was a quiet place facing in such a way that I could see a panorama of water before me. There was a place for a bench but the bench itself had been removed, probably too much hanky-panky in the dark. The wind was still blowing but the sun was out, with a little shelter this would be quite cozy. So I just sat down next to a small wall and rested.

I started to think about the water and the air and how the water evaporated into the air.

About how there must be a very fine line just above the water that keeps it water and not air, or maybe there isn’t a line at all. Maybe there is a smooth transition. And maybe the same is true for the tree in front of me and the ground; and for the concrete under me and the ground under that, and for the atmosphere above me and the space above that. I nodded off for a few seconds. It was wonderful, just being warm in the sun and the shelter of that wall.
When I awoke I continued in my thoughts. Now I considered myself being somehow merged with that wall and the suns rays and the concrete below me. Isn’t there some essence of me drifting between the molecules of that slab and of the slab into me? If I sat still right here long enough wouldn’t I eventually be absorbed by it, and it by the earth below and the sky above? It’s just a matter of time and process before we are all connected.
But there is only now, the past and the future don’t really exist and so if I am connected ever, I am connected now, it just doesn’t appear to be so to my eyes.
I love the feeling of connectedness. It’s not like glue, its like love. It is sympathy and empathy. It is “do no harm” and it is “love you neighbor” and much, much more. It is the bond of freedom.

Epiphany…

I heard some people talking behind me and I felt connected to them. I wondered what their motives were for being in this sacred place at this unique moment.
I smiled and said “hey there, how you dooo’n?” they nodded back a reply, smiled and went about their business as I did also… it was all good, all very good.
I took the walk back to my scoot a little slow, even considering how the microbes I squished under my feet as I walked were meant for this moment and it was all good.
I got going feeling the air a little deeper and my real meaning a little truer.
I went to bed very tired and got up to do some work but had to lie down again, just exhausted.

I had promised a close friend that I would get the book “Rich dad, Poor dad” and read it, I’ve always had a problem with finances and it seemed like a good prescription. But I had a much greater problem that I knew full well of… I was unteachable.

I read, study, memorize and pass all the tests but I could apply nothing of anyone else’s wisdom to my own life. So I went with the usual skepticism that a lifetime of living with your own stubbornness can bring.
When I went outside to get going I noticed a lightness almost immediately. The sun was good and the air was good… refreshing in a way, enjoyable. The library wasn’t open yet and there were people waiting, some patiently, some not, but it was all good to me.
I went right to the computer and found the book… I had made a commitment to my friend and myself and I was going go honor it.

Just then something strange and wonderful happened.

As I passed the shelves I notice a book on art and I was curious in a new sort of way… I have interests in art and writhing and thinking outside the box but I have never had time for that.
Let me put it like this: as I passed that book it called to me… I was connected to it and it seduced me into fondling it. And what’s worse it had some friends with some pretty loose morals also.

Epiphany…

By the time I was done I had an art book, a writing book, a picture book, a joke book and a book on tribal decoration in Africa.
I felt kind of conspicuous with all these books so I asked the librarian how many I can take at a time. She said, “You are allowed 50 items”. I grew an amazing smile. She said that that was not uncommon.
Don’t get me wrong, I had checked out books, many, many books from the library before but this was different, I wanted to be changed by these books. I wanted to feel the life in them, to enjoy a connection to them like finding a previously unknown relative.

I had become teachable. After writing this I will read them all and go make some more new soul mates tomorrow.