Twilight Walks - December

In December I started taking walks at twilight through the neighborhood. Something I haven’t done in the 15 years we have lived here; finally getting to know where I live… ‘Bout time, don’t you think :) Walking in this liminal light, life seems more alive to me. In this in-between space something awakens in me. The spirit of Life becomes more apparent as life goes through its daily transition from light to dark. I seem to become more *aware* of the Mystery behind it all, driving it all, compelling me to seek it out. Twilight becomes a threshold of heightened awareness of Life being lived: the sounds of birds bedding down in the pines and spruces; the sight of a flock of geese flying; the crunching of snow and ice beneath my feet; the smell of dinners being prepared; the sound of a man chipping ice from the gutter so the snow melt can flow; the sun splaying its light out in a final flare of color in the clouds just before the light disappears completely.

In all this noticing I become aware of the vast spaciousness of the sky. And in that noticing - the awareness that I am really *not* on solid ground – but suspended on a small spinning globe that looks like a marble *within* this vastness of space. It is not Earth *and* Sky – as if two separate entities meeting at the horizon - but Earth enveloped by Sky – enveloped by the vast eternal spaciousness of Being. Ironically, the twilight walks help me to *see*…

One evening in particular I felt a deep heart ache, a deep longing in my heart. Maybe you have felt it too sometimes - that deep longing or ache in your being for that felt sense of the Sacred, that sense of Presence; that felt “connection” with the Essence of all Life; for the Truth of Existence; a longing for a deeper intimacy with the Nature of Being. A *deep* unexplainable gratitude arose from this longing, for the experience of this vastness and intimacy with the Nature of all things, through nature. It was a gratitude that was beyond comprehension. This gratitude for Existence and the vastness of Being opened up a larger context of awareness that cannot be fully described, or grasped, allowing me to *see* the *beauty* and *aliveness* of the natural world, and our essential Nature - *as* all one Beingness, one Aliveness. Beingness ItSelf living ItSelf here, intimately alive – as this – as us… What a wonderful alive Mystery!

As I walked in the crispness of the winter air, feeling a deeper kinship with the Nature of all things, I began to feel as if I was really *meeting* Life for the first time. And I liked it. I liked this new exploration of my environment, the new felt connection to the natural world, and my new re-discovery of the vastness of Being - and what it stirred inside.

As the sun moved further down behind the mountains, house lights began to give off their warm glow. My focus went to wondering about the people who live in them. Neighbors, yet strangers – and all Beingness too. I noticed a cat viewing the sunset in one window, and a dog barking at me from another as I passed by. Beingness being too…

Enthralled by my inner discoveries and the dimming light of twilight, I startled when a neighbor greeted me from her driveway. We don’t know each other well, except the exchanged pleasantries of neighbor-strangers over the years. We had a brief encounter as she thanked me for the card I sent her over a year ago when she was first diagnosed with cancer, and tells me that her cancer has come back, even though treated for a year. She seems undisturbed by the news. I, on the other hand, in my vulnerable, open state, felt saddened by the awareness of another threshold occurring right across the street; another in-between space as life continues its natural cycles. None of us is immune. We’re always at a threshold of the unknown. And I’m beginning to allow myself to be there and deeply *feel* that in-between space; to be deeply touched by the unknown spaces of Life. I crossed the street, comforted by the sight of the familiar light of home at twilight – feeling a new openness to the vastness and essence of Life as I crossed the threshold…