It's easy to connect with the divine seeing the gentle joy of three guys resting in the woods nearby ...
It is happiness within yourself that gives you that joy in which all feelings of the world leave you because you are so filled with the feeling of yourself. Gregge Tiffen (soon to be published in the Collected Works of Gregge Tiffen)
At first read, you might experience a reaction to the words ‘so filled with the feeling of yourself’. It may even sound egotistical. After all, we look askance at people who are ‘full of themselves’.
But look, read again. Just what does it mean to be ‘filled with the feeling of yourself’ to the point of joy? Is it only those transcendent moments that many seek in mediation? Or might joy be simply recognizing, feeling if you will, the divine that is you as you move through and experience the most basic events in life?
This week I’ve had the opportunity to review some soon to be published material from Gregge Tiffen that is being compiled as The Collected Works of Gregge Tiffen. (YES! I’ll let you know just as soon as it’s available.) In this material he reminds the reader (at least this reader!) that spiritual awareness, connection to the Divine (Universe, God, or whatever label you choose) can be experienced in the simplest and most basic activities. He includes responding to the call of nature when you really need to go along with other daily activities that, for the most part, we take for granted.
Have you ever really rested in a restroom or do you just get relief? (Written in 1989 in a creativity workshop offered by Gregge)
But what if we took these ‘routine’ activities for the miracles and creative opportunities they are?
This need not be a long, ponderous process. Indeed it is not! It is developing a new habit of allowing everyday activities to be joy-filled for just an instant. It is recognizing “the great feeling of release and cleanliness from that which had the body all tied up” (GT – unpublished work) as the miracle of life that it is - for just a moment.
It is taking time to taste the sweet nectar of joy in all of life. As I reflected on this, I challenged myself to recognize just how much sweetness and joy I experience in a day’s events and to be present to that joy.
Daily, each of us engages in activity and has moments with the potential to touch our divine nature. Perhaps that’s needed today more than ever as our own personal counter to the anger and angst that seem to fill our world.
In the week ahead I invite you to join me in tasting the sweetness that is your life. From the bathroom basics to the challenge of a difficult situation, fill yourself with the feeling of you, the you that IS the divine. And, when you lay your head on the pillow each night, count those blessings.
... and, in the wonder of unusual clouds hanging over the Sangres.