Higher Power
Again, from Desiderata:
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and
remember what peace there may be in silence.
And Emerson:
Within us is the soul of the whole, the wise silence,
the universal beauty, the eternal One.
Happily, my youthful immersions in wise silence on the starlit shores of Ocean City were not to be my last. A subsequent, far more moving immersion occurred half a century later on August 21, 2017, in a sunlit field in Glendo, Wyoming. This occasion involved not millions of nighttime stars, but one daytime star – our solar system’s sun – briefly eclipsed by our Earth’s moon.
Here’s how I endeavored to capture the experience:
Six years of war transformed by a solar eclipse into lasting peace? Had Roger and I not undergone the Glendo experience, I would have judged Herodotus’s account of how the Battle of the Eclipse ended to be fanciful. But now, I’m certain that had I been a war-weary Mede or Lydian on the battlefield 2,600 years ago – suddenly beholding that surreal, celestial majesty and feeling that wise inner silence, that time-standing-still peace, that deep sense of being eternally One with all mankind – I too would have laid down my weapons. I too would have understood that fighting one another was as futile – as absurd – as fighting one’s mirrored reflection. I too would have traded the noise and haste of war for wise, silent peace.
Steve Taylor offers this wisdom in his book of poetry, The Calm Center:*
THE PRIMAL SOUL
At first you were no one
a primal soul, an open space of being,
until they discovered you in the wilderness.They took you to the city to civilize you
to build you an identity.
They taught you their signs and signals
gave you a religion and a nationality
and handed you a list of rules.
They showed you their ancient traditions
and told you it was your duty to maintain them.
They gave you a history and a destiny,
made you a character in their story.They pointed out your brothers and sisters
told you that you were different and special
taught you to feel proud and loyal
and to be wary of those
with different rules and traditions
and different signs and signals
whose lives are less precious than yours.And finally they were satisfied
that you belonged to them completely.
But it’s not true — sometimes you feel it deep down inside
like the whisper of a faraway voice carried by the wind;
a faint memory of your primal state, and a longing to return.You know the original open space of you is still there
underneath all those layers of identity —
indestructible, unchangeable.And maybe now you’re strong enough to reclaim yourself
maybe you’re mature enough to become a child again.So step out of the story —
exempt yourself from those ancient rules
cast off those old traditions
declare yourself free of the past and the future
with your own journey to discover
and your own reality to create.Tell your people you’re still one of them
just a member of a bigger group that they’re all part of too —
a group with no rules or boundaries
that embraces without exclusion.Tell your people there’s too much at stake
for the human race to remain fragmented —
our broken pieces have already scarred the world too much.Tell your people that you have new eyes
that can see the deep ocean of oneness
beneath the shifting surface waves.Then walk back into the wilderness, naked and empty again,
and dance with primal joy.
Beneath humanity’s layers of identity – “Mede,” “Lydian,” “Christian,” “Muslim,” “conservative,” “liberal,” etc. – beneath those shifting surface waves lies a deep ocean of oneness – indestructible, unchangeable: our Primal Soul. This, I’m certain, is our higher power, who unconditionally loves us all.
*Taylor, Steve. “The Primal Soul,” The Calm Center: Reflections and Meditations for Spiritual Awakening, New World Library, 2015, Pp. 57-58.
