This ominous looking winged creature showed up at the back door on July 11th. Its wing span was at least 4 inches tip to tip – probably more. Its head still encased in its chrysalis. I had no idea what it was, so I contacted Cate Kerr from Beyond The Fields We Know. She is an aficionado of Flora, Fauna and Bugs, :) as well as a great photographer! She kindly went on a “diagnostic expedition” and returned a couple of days later with her findings. It was, she said, a Big Poplar Sphinx Moth. Looked like a stealth bomber to me! Being a mystic, I went on my own expedition to see what its symbolism might be. Mystics are like that. :) We like to explore and directly experience all aspects of Truth and the wisdom that shows up at the door.As it turns out there are multiple meanings, but in general “moths” are ancient symbols of change – new directions – and revealing that which has been hidden. Good Omen I thought… And Sphinx – well there are multiple cultural meanings as well – but a Sphinx is kind of like a Chimera, a creation of the imagination - symbolizing a merging, or union, of many aspects - mind and body, intellect and spirit, Divine and human. Whatever cultural myths are believed become embodied in its symbols and spirituality – like separation.On the same day that the Sphinx Moth landed, I had written in my journal: “There is definitely the *feel* of a shift in my life – a change of direction – but I have no idea what that is to be.” For a couple of months I’ve been experiencing this shift, getting these little hits, these feelings that life was being turned in another direction; that I have reached some kind of “turning point”, or what the Buddhists call a “turning of the wheel”, but was experienced as being stopped dead in my tracks, unable to move, to turn, to navigate – like being ground to a halt. My navigational system – my compass – is changing.Direction: Unknown. There was also a sense that all the scaffoldings that had held “me” in place needed to collapse – particularly the “spiritual scaffoldings” of “non-duality.” Meaning the framework, the conceptual structure of “non-duality” – not the actual *experience* of Beingness as It is. And with this there was a sense that there would be “new directions”, “new meanderings” along life’s path – unfettered, unencumbered, unbounded – out of the box. In a sense a move toward a freer, more authentic way of being in the world. I am currently experiencing a great deal of unrest, unsettledness, and yes, even a sense of separation with all this – as if shaken to the core – which emerged this last week as another bout with “illness” that flattened me for several days. More scaffoldings collapsing…What I seem to understand at this point in the shift - what I have always known, but have felt constrained by these mental “frameworks” - is that Life/Awareness/The Beloved/Existence *delights* in expressing ItSelf, and *how* It expresses ItSelf really doesn’t matter to It. Awareness has no concept of non-dual awareness, of non-dual language, of non-duality. It *sees* everything as ItSelf, and therefore as not separate from ItSelf. The idea that it is “non-dual” or “dual” does not even occur to It. It does not concern ItSelf with “non-duality” – or duality for that matter. It doesn’t *see* duality, the self, the me, as a problem to overcome, or be seen through, or merged with, as other than non-dual. The whole me/no-me, self/no-self concept, often discussed in non-dual circles, doesn’t matter anymore. I somehow had constrained mySelf by subtly making those very linear delineations, splitting Existence in two – creating duality; becoming more *self* conscious - trying to fit this expression of Being into a “non-dual” conceptual framework, instead of just Being what I already knew myself to be. My SELF! BEingness being ItSelf…
What a relief! Such freedom! I can just be ME! - living from the Heart and not the framework, the scaffolding. In a sense I muted this Aliveness that wants to express here *through* constraining myself to the frameworks and scaffoldings of *conceptual* “non-dual” ideas, interpretations, language and beliefs – trying to fit myself into a nice neat “spiritual” box. And evidently this “new direction” is about coming Alive again, rekindling the Life that already lives here -“outside the box.”
Our Eternal Beingness only expresses “Livingness.” It’s only purpose, evidently, is to express Life, in all of its forms. “Livingness” expressing ItSelf as Life – all life, not just “non-dual” life – whatever that might mean…
Cue moth…
“Everything is blooming most recklessly;
