The Dance of Fragments (or “Football,” as inspired by musings of Rick Chafee)

This poem describes being deeply in the human experience and also knowing the consciousness that connects all things in the universe.

This poem came spilling out in the midst of discussions with other Conscious Leadership Guild members about the humanness of being human and the awareness that comes when one realizes the undifferentiated connection that exists amongst all of creation. The tone of the discussion was that being in the human state of duality, such as when a football fan is watching a favorite team play and is cheering wholeheartedly, is beautiful, and an agreement that being immersed in that perspective is the offering and true gift of being human, the amnesia of it.

In the amnesia of it, such as in the context of unending grief of a loved one who has passed, can also be experienced as excruciating. In the excruciating suffering, we have simply forgotten who we are. It is also in the excruciating suffering that we often decide to seek the other path, the path that leads to awareness that human consciousness does not have to be engrossed in the thoughts and feelings that cause us suffering.

Instead, there are thousands of years of practices from thousands of spiritual traditions (contemplative prayer, mindfulness meditation, etc.) that allow for us to, and teach us how to, slow down in order to come to understand, in our own way into consciousness. It is in the practice of turning to the consciousness that, in all perceived suffering, we can become silent and allow for the consciousness that is always there within us to show us that we can, in all circumstances, allow for the thoughts and feelings that lead us into suffering to just BE, peacefully, without believing them.

We can do this just as easy as believing them. We can literally watch all thoughts and allow for all feelings to pass by in our consciousness or we can decide whether we want to live them as our truth.  This is how we live our lives “consciously” – in the decision-making. We can chose the path of our life more clearly this way, just as one chooses moves on a board game.

This poem describes being deeply in the human experience and also knowing the consciousness that connects all things in the universe.

How beautiful it is
To be fully human
In the belief that
What I can feel
And see
and hear
And smell
And taste,
The rough and the soft
The delightful and
The horrifying,
The fragrant and
The putrid,
Are real, as real
As the experience
Of it all,
And, in the knowing
That the consciousness,
If only I notice it,
Observes
and allows for
the excitement and
gifts the amnesia,
While, in every moment,
Just beyond the “I”
And the “you,” awaits
The light
that unveils
It all as One –
The connected expression
Of fragments of the whole
Dancing for the pleasure
Of the One,
Which is, and
Has always been,
Love.