A Dolphin’s Quick Grace



Last week my full attention was arrested by the words and music of the extraordinary Christmas carol, “Silent Night”. Right where I was standing in the road, it flooded me with humility and awe. I instantly shot back in time to every nativity scene I had experienced in my youth. What is this alchemy that I am captured by in every cell in my body in this longing for the pure experience of the Divine, in this moment, in this season, in this song, this achingly tender song, creating and resonating in the very air around me?


I look up into the night sky.


Midnight, blue stars pulsing, punctuating the vast cold distances from star to earth, a shifting constellation, the whole-wide-world whispering and chanting, whispering and chanting…..


When Ande and I were dating, I used to say to her that I knew that I was in love with her because whenever I thought of her, I could “see” dolphins swimming in my solar plexus.


She probably thought that I meant endorphins, but she looked at me a little strangely and humored me. For my part, I was used to people looking at me a little strangely. So I carried on.


In time she has accepted the idea that the dolphins that swim in my solar plexus are but messengers to me (and to us) of the deeper waters that we all swim in, where our “wishes, fears and fantasies” plow an arc before us and lead us (though we protest that we are, after all, still in charge) to our better selves, to our magic, to our deeper reasoning—and to the labyrinth where all the mysteries prevail.


But at five o’clock this morning, in the grey light of a rainy winter day, I started recounting to Ande all the pain I had experienced in the world in recent months and ended my lament on the word “riven” which to me in that context meant “ impaled, driven straight through by sword or knife”.


The pain piercing me (that I had experienced through the lives and tribulations of so many people that I love) as well as in the world itself, with its traumas and agonies, so many lives interrupted, ended, so much loss—I was just ‘riven’.


As I said the word riven to my now waking wife, she asked wisely,“And what do you want to say back to the world?”:


I said something about the British Commandoes in World War II who were trained before battle to fully encounter the pain, fear, loss they felt with a simple but profound mechanism:“Breathe in all the negativity (fear, pain, loss), feel it fully and then release it all in your next breath (but not until it has been fully experienced on the in-breath).”


That reply, however, seemed hopelessly superficial, trendy, banal.


So we talked further about the two modalities of individual and collective action that are thought of as western world view on the one side (individualist), and Asian/Indigenous (collectivist) on the other. (Very broad brush strokes here). We discussed how these two ways of seeing the world bracket much of what prowls the streets of the world today looking for a place to claim as home.


There is a concept in my spiritual path which rests on the same principle, a “nesting” of the supreme “I Am” which celebrates the pure subjective declaration of the Self (both large and small) a claiming of one’s spot in the Universe uniquely.


“That” (in the ‘predicate” of the same sentence, I Am That) refers to the universal consciousness which pervades all things, the collective “I am” which infuses, and is infused by, the consciousness itself that creates, permeates and glues the whole vast fabric together.


Each of us is BOTH a pulse and a constituent element of“I am” AND “That”! We are all both breathe in and breathe out, inhale AND exhale: BOTH a citizen of our own interior world and citizens of the wide world around us. Actions must of be taken, but first we must establish a center within ourselves and then within a context in the world.


It has been said that the Universe is a “conscious entity” whose circumference is nowhere and whose epicenter is everywhere. Each “I Am” is a bud of “awareness” which collectively becomes “That”. The world is a summation of all the shards of light that we sing through the words of the lovely songs of Christmas, or the Sanskrit chants to Shiva, or the rituals of Chanukah, or the Native American incantatory drums, words and dance, or the Sufi mystical ecstasy, or the Shinto priest who answers the western scholar’s question about theology by saying, “I think we have no theology! I think we dance!”




Winter Solstice on Mt. Hope Bay


On this winter solstice evening
the bay is riven
By a thousand quick dolphins,
perfect swimmers
roiling its waters
to a splendor of light:
The Gifts of the Magi
To our breath are given
On this Night Divine
To the heralding joy
In abiding love
We sing

I am one happy Dad!! Ivan called us this morning. I am very disappointed that I was out running at that time, but he told his Mom, to tell me that he is doing his best and that he misses running with me. He has a cold from the change of weather, and it also gave him a nose bleed. He got 2 days light duty. He gave us his "ship" and "division" that he is assigned to. He said that he will be able to call again in 2 weeks. My goodness! It feels so good to hear from him.

Word of the Day: Gustatory.

ADJECTIVE
1. Concerned with tasting or the sense of taste.

Example Sentences.
1. "His gustatory abilities were so refined, he was made a judge in the esteemed wine competition."
2. "Susie's cold prevented her from appreciating the gustatory delights of the home-cooked meal."
3. "The sense of smell contributes to our gustatory abilities just as much as taste buds do."

Word Origin.
Latin, late 17th century

"Gustatory" is an adjective concerned with anything related to taste, joining other sense-related terms such as "aural" (hearing), "olfactory" (smell), "visual" (sight), and "tactile" (touch). "Gustatory" can describe the quality of a taste — sweet, salty, sour, or bitter — or it can refer to the mechanics and process of tasting something.

Word Of The Day. Apéritif

NOUN
An alcoholic drink taken before a meal to stimulate the appetite.

Example Sentences.

“The hostess greeted her guests at the door with an apéritif.”

“The caterer’s menu included an apéritif served before dinner.”

“My favorite apéritif is an ice-cold gin martini.”

The noun “apéritif” is taken from the French adjective of the same spelling, meaning “stimulating appetite.” An apéritif is an alcoholic drink usually served before the meal to stimulate the appetite. Common apéritifs include vermouth, dry sherry, brandy, champagne, and gin. The apéritif tradition has been in Europe for centuries, but in America, the practice gained popularity in the 1970s and is better known as “happy hour.” An apéritif is served before a meal, and a digestif is served at the end of a meal. Instead of a dry cocktail, it’s usually a sweeter beverage, such as cognac, sweet sherry, or a liqueur.

Do you know about the ghost ships of the Great Lakes? The Great Lakes are home to an estimated 6,000 shipwrecks, many of which are perfectly preserved in the cold, fresh water. Some say these ghost ships appear as eerie apparitions on foggy days, a spectral reminder of the perilous waters’ storied past.