I am indebted to Victoria Hamilton-Rivers who inspired this
conversation.
She says "Sitting here looking at the ocean with light sparkling on the
water is all I need to remind me of what's infinite and possible for
us human beings passing through.".
After a moment I say (I muse actually) "Talking about us
human beings passing through, like we're passing through
it ... how about it's it's passing through
us?".
She says (after a pause) "That's a provocative one Laurence!".
How interesting, I think. It seems so obvious - and I wasn't trying to
be provocative (as I sometimes am). But in retrospect I guess the idea
is provocative even though not a lot of thought goes into
it. It passing through us rather than
us passing through it, occurs to me in the moment.
Not like a carefully rationalized theory. Not like a well thought
through scientific hypothesis. Neither is it coming from intellect.
It's not a concept either. It's more like a whim, more
like a fleeting experience (a fleeting romantic experience
actually) which suddenly
presences
itself then almost immediately disappears as if to tease me to chase
it, to come after it, to look for it, to seek it out. Kind of like it's
playing some sort of divine game of cat and mouse with me.
Or hide and seek: now you see me, now you don't - come and get
me!
Having zeroed in on it and
committed
it to paper for this essay (I've actually
committed
it to a memory chip on a server somewhere - but to say I've
committed
it to paper is
good enough for
jazz),
having stopped for a moment and looked at it closely, it's actually
quite awesome - it's stunning actually.
Who I really am
is
context,
space, possibility. All of Life and everything in it is
content. This content includes all of us. So in inquiring into
the matter of human beings passing through ie passing through
Life, is the question "Who's passing through
what?" (we're passing through it) or is it
"What's passing through whom?" (it's passing
through us)? It suddenly intrigues me, it grips me that
it's possible it really is it's (content) passing through
ie
showing up
for ie occurring for
us
(context)
rather than we're passing through, passing through Life,
passing through it.
Then, almost as soon as I get it, it disappears. When I realize it's
gone, when I realize we're sitting on the beach just passing
through again, I look to see if I can
create
it again ie I look to see if I can
create
the shift from we're passing through it, to it's passing through us
again. It's magic! Through consideration (and through
consideration alone) I
re-create
the shift. It's back! It's passing through us again.
And that's the way it stays - at least for a while until suddenly I
notice I haven't made the shift stick permanently: it's gone.
Now it's we're passing through it again. The
contextual
shift has reversed itself. And it's nothing I did or didn't do. It just
flip flopped all by itself. But ... as soon
as I discover it's gone, I notice I can
create
it again.
Listen: that we're passing through, passing through Life, passing
through it, albeit
ordinary
and
business as usual,
is totally marvelous. That it's passing through us, however, is
extra-ordinary
and miraculous. And we're both - which is to say you and I
possess the power to
creatively
shift the
context
at will from one to the other and back again at every moment under all
circumstances.