Heart Reading … Day 13

Sometimes being still isn’t a choice.

Most every Wednesday for many years I have sat still with a group of mostly women 10–20 years older than me. We meditate, we bow to each other, we read beautiful words, and we share brief insights. It is quite the practice. Today we read a piece about breathing. We reflected on counting to ten our in- and out-breaths and repeating, and repeating.

One element of the reading about breathing that stood out — in light of this daily heart reading practice — was the notion, the confident assertion, that you and I (all of us) are only one small cell apart from being connected to each other. This is entirely in line with what I wrote in yesterday’s heart reading (Day 12 … very hard to find in a web browser…).

As adults, it may be somewhat difficult — depending on your activity level day to day — to remember back to the time when you understood interbeing, when you knew in the cells and fibers of your being that you were connected to all other sentient beings, when you still had the memory of being in the womb — when you were breathed by your mother.

As children we are launched out of this understanding of interbeing, some of us sooner than others, in so many ways. There are adults who have forgotten that we are all connected and they shock us out of our memory of interbeing. There are behaviors we experience which are harsh and crude and not at all in concert with the experience we know of interbeing. And there are myriad nonverbals and non sequiturs and confusing experiences that slowly erode the peace and sense of oneness we once had.

Today’s heart reading has me sitting still and really feeling these words. A lot of old memory is coming through as a result, some of it quite painful.

One thing is for certain; it feels good and life-affirming to have another’s words echo my own. The experience of resonance and interbeing is everywhere — just one cell away — even though it may take everything we’ve got to be able to find and see it.