To Be or not to Be?

What comes first, the thought or the thing?

This week has seen birth and death within the same river, Little Red Riding Hood running through the forest, and a wanderlust pervading almost everything else I do. All this follows two months devoted to a conscious return to life as it is, supported by a Mindfulness course run by the NHS. Yes, that's right!

The quiet power of presence brings material change soon afterwards. For me, a lump inside has gone! Not without material changes in diet and such, but, without the lump, I no longer relate to the world's suffering to the same degree. Perhaps this is why those around me feel closer, too.

So which came first - the inner state or the outer struggle? The lump certainly provided enough discomfort to colour things. Equally though, the terrors unfledged across the world have also commanded obvious attention through a small screen before me. So does one belong with or to the other? Are they separate or innately entwined within the very fabric of the universe?

Still, something feels easy inside now, which is life-affirming. That! And now, this: my skin (where body and environment kiss) has begun its own little rebellion. Not so little either as I am prevented from putting my hands into water without fiery sharpness, suspending my body from normal duties until potions are administered - the rage, quietened!

There is urgency in it. Water has becomes a psychological trigger, a menace or necessary evil, and I contemplate soothing this dis-ease in the river, a different kind of water, free-flowing and more natural.

If I could sit with you, I know it would all quieten, no matter what the problem. I have done it before when too ill to drag my student self into school to teach art. On sitting, something shifted. And again, when birthing too early. Putting my attention where it needed to be, eased the pain. Once again, I think of global challenges we have, of where we can find solace in clean rivers and calm seas. But how can I help, I ask myself, in this restless body?

At night, various tricks fail to bring sleep as the heat rages in my hands. The other night, I must have slipped into a vibrant dream state: My Mum is before me. Her brown eyes are beautiful. I tell her something, something about her anger; I am hurting or lost. She looks shocked, her old self gives up and, boring pleasantly into the space between my neck and shoulder, I am left carrying her dead light weight, crying: "I love you! I love you! I love you..." Something else has shifted. Whatever dissolved within that dream has bridged different realms of existence. Now, in my 'awake' state, whatever my mother had meant to me has dissolved, no longer separate, bringing me back from somewhere quite dark, returning 'mother' to 'self', so to speak.

In this world, a close one's life looks like it is coming to a close (at least, according to the reel I saw about this crossover). This contemplation is stirring. What cannot be accessed in our usual comings-and-goings may be reached when consciousness alters. And difficult dynamics can be realised before being transmuted forever.

So the question remains:

"Where do I end and you begin, my love? Where do you end and I begin my love? If dreams can transform our conscious states, and the outer world can do too, you also have this power. Come meditate with me for all is one and one is all

in this great sea of life. And death."