By the Sea

The sea has a mix of movement and sound that is intoxicating, especially when you are walking along its shoreline. You are not quite in it, but you can see it, smell it, feel it, hear it, touch it. All the senses are activated at once. The man thought about how his subconscious was actually the first observer, and then he thought, how would the subconscious sense? Does it have a sense of smell? A sense of touch?

He walked over to the woman, mindful that she was not his teacher. The waves, breaking in the bay, were so loud he had to raise his voice. “How does the subconscious sense our reality? You said earlier that it feeds our senses. If this is true, then it must have five senses. Yet, how?”

“Our reality begins before the five senses. We already know that our reality consists of an infinite set of data points, each of which is interconnected and collectively constitute our reality of nowness and allness. It is an infinite sea unto itself — each and everyone of us have this.”

“But none of us know this or experience it,” the man said.

“We don’t want to,” she replied. “It would be too much to live in this reality and experience our total reality in the same spacetime. This is why we have a subconscious and a Sovereign to meld realities gradually and in a balanced approach.”

“What exactly does it do?” the man asked.

“The subconscious?”

“Yes. What does it do and how does it do it?”

“I will answer you incompletely,” she affirmed in a resolute tone. “The subconscious senses our reality, not with the human senses of the mind, for the simple reason that our senses sculpt reality into something that is digestible to our humanness. We don’t know what percent of our reality we perceive, because if there was a way for the subconscious to deliver our entire reality to our mind and heart, we would instantly go crazy.”

“How?”

“Overload.”

“Has anyone experienced this?”

“Hardly,” she answered. “But simply double the percentage of .000000000001, and you would lose your balance. Remove a few zeros and you would be proclaimed insane.”

“But how does the subconscious sense? What are its perceptors? How can it see, hear, smell — how can it make sense of our total reality, and itself not go insane?”

“Now, you have stumbled on the right question,” she said with a smile.

She stooped down to touch a wave as it dribbled to their feet like exhausted children. The sound of sand crystals chiming in the air was drenched in the wave, but somehow its crystalline voice found their ears.

“The subconscious lives within the border between two worlds: the incarnated species it represents in spacetime, and the un-incarnated species known as the Sovereign Integral. In this place, its perceptions bridge the two worlds. Those perceptions are not human, which is to say, they are not human senses. They are extradimensional. They make use of all data, stitching it together into our wholeness. Our reality, now.

“It is our senses that gather the data our humanness desires to know and has the ability to manifest. Let’s say we had a desire to smell a tropical flower, but we didn’t have the spacetime that supports the existence of that flower. So, if it was a strong enough desire, and we had the means, we would place it in our spacetime. Our senses would enjoy it and appreciate it.

“What if we didn’t have the means?” the man asked.

“Do you mean if we didn’t have a sense of smell or the financial resources to acquire the flower?” she returned.

“Yes.”

“There is a part of us that is aware that when we hold that flower to our nose, we are not experiencing the totality of that flower. Even our subconscious does not. That reality is only for the flower. It is singular in its experience, and singular in its expression. However, there is a part of it that is integral to all. That is shared with all. That is its contribution. There remains a part that is not shared. It cannot be. It is the culmination of all things for that sovereign. Thus, our uniqueness.”

“So…the subconscious doesn’t take it all in, it still must have its own senses,” the man said, shaking his head slightly.

The woman stopped walking.

The man followed her lead, and turned to her. “This is confusing.”

“Of course it is,” the woman replied. “The subconscious is like an elusive guest who brings you gifts. You walk into your home, and on the table is a feast awaiting you. But your appetite is only so strong. You may look at the feast of food, and think, I’ll have just that orange. Not because you only like the orange, but your appetite is weak and you want something light and refreshing. Your guest might infer from your reaction that you don’t appreciate their offering of a feast.”

She turned away to look at the sea. “Do you understand?”

“So, over time it will not serve a feast, at all…”

“Precisely,” she said.

The man suddenly perked up. “So, the subconscious brings us more data as young children, and as we age, our appetites turn to more earthly things like survival and fitting into the social norms. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yes, but eventually, we must confront the looming reality of death, and it is there that our appetite increases.”

“But that’s only because we fear death,” the man observed, “and we want to assuage our fear and understand the big questions like who are we? What will happen after death? Where will our reality go next? Things like that…”

“Yes.”

“I’m in my twenties, and I feel my appetite is strong. I don’t fear death too much, but I want this information. I want to see the wider picture in order to have the deeper understanding.”

“My point is that our appetite varies in the course of our life. The subconscious observes and serves its partners in humanness — the body, mind, heart, and ego. It is not a dictator. The sovereign, the thread of unity, also observes and learns. There is a readiness implicit in our appetite, to live an interconnected life, in addition to a life of separation. Again, it is not a matter of leaving one for the other.”

“Last time we spoke,” the man said, “or perhaps the previous time, I can’t remember just now, you said that the imagination was the key. Where is the imagination in all of this?”

“The imagination is the ability to envision the past and future or alternate realities. It is a talent of our mind. It is self generative, but is influenced by the spacetime reality of an individual. It is the thing that can spark the appetite for the individual.”

“How?”

“With certain words, images, sounds, and sensory awareness, the imagination can more easily envision interconnectedness, and feel it, too. The imagination can flex between all of the parts of our humanness. It can live across time, it can dive into the heart, it can open any door, even the hidden ones.”

“Does the imagination and subconscious work together?” the man asked.

“In a way…” the woman replied.

They continued walking along the beach, and were coming to a cliff that made further passage impossible, unless they wanted to swim around the rocks.

“Looks like it’s time to return to the place from where we started,” the woman observed. The man nodded and they turned around and started back.

“The imagination is the most open of all the senses. It is, in a way, a seventh sense. The sense of envisioning what is not a sensory object, but rather an abstract concept, a thing waiting for birth. The imagination can anoint such a thing with life and substance.”

“And how does it work with the subconscious?”

“Our subconscious is forever observing the Allness of our spacetime reality. It imparts these observations to our human senses, not only the five we know well, but the sixth and seventh senses: intuition and imagination. Intuition is of the heart, our feeling center. Imagination is of the mind, our envisioning center.

“As I said before, the subconscious observes all, but if the all is of separation, then our senses can only sense separation, building our beliefs on the exclusive data that we are separate. It is our imagination that can first bring in the data of interconnectedness to our human senses. To stimulate our appetite for the words, images, sounds that stir our sense of interconnectedness.”

“And what does this really give us if everyone else around us perceives only separation?” the man asked. “It seems like a lonely post…”

The woman stopped and pointed to the top of limestone cliffs that surrounded them like a giant bowl on one side. “Imagine you are on the top of those cliffs. Can you see further than me, down here on the beach?”

The man looked for a moment both ways. “To the sea, we would be about the same, maybe I could see a little further.”

“And to the land?”

“I could see much better than you, because you’re down here, and the cliffs hide the land.”

She nodded. “Who is lonelier? The one who can see in all directions or the one who can see only one?

“You know the answer, yet it is a common fallacy of those who seek the interconnected. They believe somehow that they will become more isolated and lonely, as if once they understand the true nature of things, everyone around them who advocates for separation, will avoid them.”

“And they’re not?”

“Why would you choose to avoid someone who holds a novel belief for a logical reason?”

“But they do avoid these conversations,” the man said. “I’ve seen it myself.”

“They are not ready to turn away from the reality they have lived in nearly their entire life. That’s all it says. There is no loneliness in understanding our interconnectedness. That is the fallacy, but most people who believe this fallacy it because they are learning the spiritual ways of separation.”

“The spiritual ways of separation?” the man echoed reflexively.

“Yes.”

 “Please explain, because I thought spirituality was the belief in interconnectedness?”

“When you can feel and envision interconnectedness you are not lonely. You understand, and in this understanding, you are compassionate. Compassion is anti-loneliness. It is the connecting point that powers both our feeling center and envisioning center.

“It is not a spiritual belief. It is a logical belief. It does not wear a single article of clothing from spirituality, religion, science, even philosophy. It is simply logical that we are interconnected, and that we have a consciousness that is a part of that Allness, yet unique in every way due to our unique journey through spacetime duality.

“Spirituality of separation is where you find levels of separation. The higher, the lower. The saint, the sinner. The better, the lesser. The moral, the immoral. The lighter, the darker. The experienced, the inexperienced. These become the beacon of spirituality and religion. Those who profess spirituality to be an improved form of religion, continue to follow separation if there is a higher and lower. Do you understand?”

“I’m not sure,” the man said. “I know you have said that if we believe in our imagination and intuition as the parts of our mind and heart that form a partnership. And together they fuse in a purpose to experience and express interconnectedness in our reality — initially through logic, and then through experience…”

The man paused for a moment. “I guess where I’m confused is the term, spirituality of separation. I think before I met you, I was in that world. I had broken from the bonds of religion that my parents had weaned me on from a young child. I found a personal spirituality that was about goodness and the pursuit for truth. How is that of separation?”

“It may not be. Does it have a higher and lower?”

“I progress in my understanding. I climb higher in my understanding–”

“Is there an organization behind it?” she asked, interrupting his thought.

“Not really…maybe a small one.”

“Then it is of separation, but perhaps the ratio of its separation with interconnectedness is different from a major, world religion. Remember there is no perfect path of interconnectedness that can be crystallized from one person to another. It can only be understood by one — you.” She pointed at him with a smile. “The more the path is your own, the more it is veering into interconnectedness. And the more the path is followed by others — meaning it is wide and paved and signposts dot its path, the more it is veering into separation.”

“You just said that it is a ratio, not an absolute. Does that mean there is no path for consciousness and interconnectedness?” he asked.

“There is a path only for the individual. The individual can use their imagination and intuition with logic, and seek out the higher consciousness that is their Sovereign, and allow it to lead them to the Integral. All the while we know that reality will still bite us; that the path is not about fellowship and rulebooks. We are learning to experience and express our one, many and all consciousness in spacetime duality.

“We wake up each day looking for interconnectedness, because we know its partner — separation — is always lurking to remind us of the higher and lower, the better and worse, the right and wrong. And we know that these two worlds intersect in our reality every single moment of our existence in spacetime. We vow to live a ratio, and that ratio is set by us. Its expression in our lives is from us. Its energy is from us. Its purpose is ours. It’s unavailable to be judged.

“Yes, there is a path, but there is only one path for one individual and one sovereign. And this is because the path of Allness is infinite. Encompassing all life, in all its forms.”

She stared out at the sea for a moment and took a deep breath through her nose, and then slowly exhaled with a collection of words. “Separation is like the air we breathe. It is everywhere and invisible at the same time.”

“Then how do we get good at sensing it?”

“Oh, we sense it. The sensing of it is not the issue. It is the lack of redirection to interconnectedness, that is the issue.”

“…Redirection?” the man asked.

“When we sense separation is being promoted in words, images, or sounds around us, no matter how subtle, we can redirect our attention to interconnectedness by centering ourselves in the intersection between our heart and mind. Where they are partners. One is not more important than the other. What is important is that they are equal partners, and that imagination and intuition are their tools to redirect.”

“How?”

She sighed, clasping her hands behind her. “Logical compassion.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that phrase before…”

“Well,” she replied, “where the heart and mind are concerned, you get unique phrases.” She chuckled to herself. “There is a story about a man, I suppose not unlike yourself, who was wandering in a desert for an entire day without any water. He was lost, and he knew it. The wind had erased his footprints, and walking in the deep sand, up and down dunes, was tiring him out and making his thirst only worse. At one point nearing death’s door, in the twilight of the day, he had a vision. In this vision he was a bird, and he could soar above the desert. When he did, he could see a small settlement with people, streets, barking dogs, gardens — the things indicative of life.

“He immediately stood up and walked in the direction of his vision with whatever amount of strength and determination remained in his body and mind. When he came to the settlement he saw that it had long been abandoned. There were no people or barking dogs. No gardens were being tended. The streets had long been vanquished by the winds.”

“He had been dreaming?” the man asked.

“No, he had a vision. A true vision. He had logically assumed there would have to be a well in such a place.”

“And was there?” the man asked.

“Yes, and it had water, but when he drank it, it was obviously tainted, and he couldn’t quench his thirst. The water was there, but it wasn’t something he could drink. If he had, it would only hasten his death. In this situation, he knew his time was short and his end would be miserable and alone. The worst of companions.

“At this point the man had only one option. He needed a miracle. Something had to happen that would be miraculous or he would die. That was his only option. As night began to fall, and the first stars became visible, he was so weak that he laid down on the warm sand to die. All he could see were the stars in the night sky. After a short time, he thought he saw movement in the stars.

“Clouds were forming. It wasn’t long before the first rain drop hit his forehead, and he began to laugh. He opened his mouth and the rain poured in. He swallowed and drank the rain. His dusty body was washed, too. Within minutes he was revived from his deathbed of sand. He stood up, and when he did, he heard a voice: ‘Follow me if you desire to move deeper into this life’.

“He looked around, but in the dark, he could not see anything. He wasn’t even sure if the voice was real or he was just hallucinating. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, and he shouted, ‘follow you where? I can’t even see you.’

“The voice told him that it was his mind and heart speaking to him. It was not a thing outside of him. It was a thing that was inside and outside. Everywhere and everything. It was that thing that was all. That he was a part of. And if he listened to that voice, it would guide him.

“The man had no choice. He decided to trust the voice and the first thing it told him was to use his mind and heart as one sensory system. When he did this, he could see how nature around him was covered in darkness, yet dimly lit by jeweled stars and a crescent moon. He could see how nature was cradling him in its arms. He suddenly remembered something his mother had told him about how the stars could be used as signposts to find direction. 

“And suddenly, he was no longer lost in the desert. He knew which way to move.”

She paused and stooped down for a shell. “Look closely at this shell,” she said, handing it to him. “Do you see?”

The man looked at it, bringing it close to his eyes. “The spiral?”

“Yes, do you see how it has formed into this perfect geometry?”

He nodded. “And how does it relate to the story you just told?”

“Nature is cradling us. Each one of us, not just the species we represent. Each one of us. Nature is intelligent, and Nature is a potent force guided by intelligence. A planetary intelligence, not a human, animal, plant or computer intelligence. ”

“Even in storms?”

“Even in storms,” she said.

“And how does that relate to logical compassion?”

“Separation is what enables nature. Nature is us, and we are Nature. This is logical and indisputable. This is of the mind. And because this is true, it is also true that we are interconnected with it, and this is of the heart. And this is where compassion enters.”

“What about those who live in cities and see little of nature?”

“Then we define Nature as trees, mountains, and the sea.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Nature is all of us. Every living creature. We are the planet itself, and the planet is part of the nature of our universe and all the life therein. So, logical compassion pursues this melding of heart and mind. And compassion is our way of feeling nature, and feeling we are a vital part of it through our interconnectedness with it. And logic is our way of believing. It is not to recite the beliefs of others, but to understand, through logic, that we are an all-encompassing consciousness that is interconnected. That we are sovereign and we are integral. We are consciousness — not a brain, and we are nature, not a human.”

“Hmm…” the man mumbled. “You must admit that it’s a form of logic that’s very abstract. It is not physical or material in any way.”

“Yes…”

“Well, doesn’t it matter?” he asked.

“Logic extends to the immaterial, does it not?” she asked.

“Can you give an example?”

“When we first met, I explained that we live in spacetime duality, which has a fundamental duality: separation and interconnectedness. It is logical to deduce that if everything is of a dual nature, there must be a fundamental duality, from which all other dualities arise.

“Further, logic would state that we live in both of these fundamental, yet polar expressions of separation and interconnectedness. It isn’t absolutely one or the other, because our reality is made up of both. Therefore, it is logical that we have free will to decide which polarity we want to live in, not as an absolute, but as a ratio. Which do we choose to be in alignment with? Which do we lean into? Which do we express in our creations and embodiments?”

The woman took the shell back from the man, and set it carefully on the sand beach. 

“That is an example of logical compassion.”

“I think I understand the logical side,” the man said. “What’s the compassion part?”

“When you held that shell, did you see it as a greeting between you and that particular shell?”

He shook his head. “…No…”

“Did you imagine its story, how it found this place and how it found you?”

Again he shook his head.

“Did you ask it any questions?”

His eyes fluttered a bit. “No.”

“Did you send it love from your heart? Did you encompass it into your reality?”

The man looked suddenly agitated. “No. None of those things. I was listening to your voice and trying to figure things out.”

The woman raised her hand, her index finger pointed to the blue sky. “You don’t ask about compassion, you live it. It is not some big event, in which you are a saint. It is the smallest of things. It always has been, because the smallest of things is precisely where our interconnectedness awaits. And this is what compassion is. If you feel this for the smallest of things, you can feel it for the largest things… like your fellow humans. If you feel it for the large things, but not the small, then compassion has not found you, or you it.

“Compassion is what allows us to see with logic without it feeling cold, distant, calculating or uncaring. Compassion is what unites us. Compassion is what brings us to the intersection of these two polarities — separation and interconnectedness — to find balance and understanding.”

“And what does logic give to compassion?” the man asked.

“A sense of higher realities. Logic and imagination are odd partners, but partners nonetheless. It is logical to believe that each living thing ultimately derives from the same source, and therefore we are interconnected. It is logical to believe that this interconnection creates compassion within us. It is compassionate to express this understanding.”

The man was still shaking his head, his eyes unfocused. “And what of love, then? You never speak of it. Why?”

“What is love but the feeling of interconnection, coupled to the logic of knowing it is real? I don’t speak of it, because it is not found in words.”

“Is it all about action, then?” the man asked.

She shook her head. “No. It is all about understanding. That is where love is found, and where it is found, it can be shared.”

“What kind of understanding?”

“All of the things we have been talking about.”

“But you just said, it can’t be found in words.”

“It cannot be, but what is behind words?”

“Thought?”

And what is behind thought?”

The man paused and closed his eyes. “Feeling?”

“What kind of feeling?” the woman asked, gently.

“Interconnectedness,” he replied with a resolute tone.

“Is it enough?”

“It needs to be in balance with separation,” he replied.

“So, a balanced sense of interconnectedness is the source of love in this world?” she asked.

“I think so…” he answered.

“And what role does logic play?”

“It makes our sense of interconnectedness… real.”

“Yes.”

“Logic and love seem like odd… odd partners,” the man observed.

“And what is behind interconnectedness? The woman asked, ignoring his observation.

The man thought for a while. His face took on a new sense of introspection. “I would say the sovereign consciousness of the individual.”

She nodded. “And what is behind that?’

“It would have to be the integral. The All.”

“And behind that?”

“The unknown…I suppose, possibly even the unknowable.”

“Exactly! And for this reason love arises from the unknown, and we do not even know where it comes from. This is precisely why humanity has been telling itself that we cannot describe love.” The woman paused and tilted her head slightly. “How do you describe something that you do not understand, because you don’t know how it came to be or where it came from?”

“Are you asking me, or is it a rhetorical question?” the man asked.

“I am asking you.”

“I was always taught that context was important to understanding. So we lack context?”

She smiled at the answer. “You have a good mind and heart. It requires both to understand love. And once love is understood, then it aligns the mind and heart. Remember when I said that the heart and mind need to be fused?”

“Yes…”

“The understanding of love is the bond between the two,” she said.

“But you’re not saying that without that understanding we can’t love?

“No, of course not,” she replied. “There is love everywhere. It is one of the most abundant of all energies in all worlds. What I am saying is that to fuse the heart and mind with love, you need to understand love’s origins. Its purpose. Its source. Even if that understanding is imperfect…” she paused for a heartbeat, “and it will be.”

“You just said that love arises from the unknown or unknowable. So, how can we understand?”

“It is not enough to know that we do not know, we must know why we don’t know. That is the imperfect understanding.”

“You mean that we’ve been disconnected from love because we associate its presence with romance, sex or charity, things like that. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so why?” he asked.

“Why don’t we know that we don’t understand love?” She returned the question with a question.

“I don’t know,” he replied immediately.

“If I asked you to describe the concept of hope, how would you do it?” she said.

“I’d use an example.”

“And what is an example of love?”

“A kind act, I suppose,” the man said.

“What about when a couple commits to one another?”

He nodded. “Yes, that’s another example.”

“What about when someone sacrifices their life for another?”

“Yes, that certainly qualifies as love.”

“What about a child playing with a butterfly?”

“I see where you’re going with this,” the man said. “Love has a lot of examples…”

“Hundreds, thousands, millions, an infinite variety. Yes.” she said. “Yet, because of love’s infinite variety of examples, it remains hidden as to its source and its evolution.”

“Love evolves?”

“Everything evolves. Why should love be any different?”

“I guess…I guess I never thought of it that way.”

“Love is an eternal thing, a creature of a wilderness our eyes will never see. And that is something each of us must realize in our own way. There is no prescription from another; only ourselves. It is not held within a fixed spacetime. It is the network or field that encompasses all things. And because of this structure, there are as many doors into this integral realization as there are Sovereigns of all species of all spacetimes.”

“And why is this important?” the man asked.

For a moment she looked to the sky, as if petitioning some invisible spirit to help. “I knew a person who was told their entire life that they were a no-good-sinner. A wretched human being. Despised by their family. Not a single friend. Untrustworthy and unabashedly selfish. This person, in every way, was considered unredeemable, locked away in an insane asylum. What would their philosophy on life be? What words would they use to describe their guiding philosophy?” The woman looked expectantly at the man, bobbing her head slightly.

“I…I can’t imagine that love would even be a part of it,” the man said quietly.

“What would love become?” she asked.

“Sex, I suppose…”

“What else?”

“Anger and frustration?”

“Yes, love can actually be contorted into any shape. It is perfectly malleable, like clay. And it all depends on the words and feelings we believe, as to what shape it forms. And it is in the formation that love exhibits — that widest latitude — when we are our most creative. Our most powerful. And potentially, our most interconnected.”

“But that hypothetical person you mentioned, was he still using love to make his forms?”

“What other material is there, if not love? Is it not logical that love is the interconnectedness we feel and imagine? That the field we live within, that enables all in spacetime to exist, is love? So even those whose forms of creation are twisted in darkness, they are merely deformed expressions of love, they are made from love, because you cannot make anything that is not love.”

He sighed. “Is one so enslaved by the words and feelings they hold that they are doomed in this life to only create deformed versions of love?”

The woman held out her arms and smiled the thinnest upward line that one can define as a smile. She did it like a ballerina at the very end of her performance.

He looked at her, and began to contort his face, shaking his head from side to side. “No…no…no way. You’re not suggesting that you were the hypothetical person?”

She put her arms down. “And why?” she asked with a shrug of her shoulders.

“How?” he asked. “The woman you described…I can’t wrap my mind around that image.” He began to shake his head again. “You are kidding, right?”

“I am proof that words and feelings and beliefs…they all matter.”

“But…but how did you make the transformation from that…that despicable person you described, to who you are now?”

“Hopeful words.”

“Like…like which words?” the man asked.

“Sovereign Integral. Unified Sources. One, many and all consciousness. Field of love. Heart-mind partnership. The thread of unity…”

“Still, how did you shift with just words?”

“I considered them hopeful, and I decided to consider them carefully. I had never really held hope before those words entered my life.”

“Who gave them to you?”

“I don’t know.”

He looked astonished at her words. “You don’t know!?”

She shook her head. “No, and you know what?”

“What?”

“I’ve never cared to really find out.”

“Why?”

“Because these words are enough to bind me to who I am, so that I can be that, and not some historically disfigured version of myself.”

“I don’t believe you,” the man announced with a penetrating tone.

“What don’t you believe?” she asked.

“That you were once that hypothetical woman. I don’t believe a person can change that much.”

“Have you seen the wilderness? I mean really looked at it as if you and it were one thing?”

“Probably not, at least by your definition,” he answered.

“The wilderness is chaos and harmony at once. If you think it should be cultivated and you go about the business of cultivation, it becomes structured, and in that structure is duality. Pretty or ugly. Good or bad. Smart or dumb. All of these dualities begin to clutter the wilderness, but wilderness is… perfect in its own way. There is no genuine sense of duality. It is in balance, despite human impacts.

“In my case, I was structured and organized by other people, by others thoughts, by other beliefs. I was a wilderness yet to be discovered. Words either exemplify the wilderness, or they echo in the structured beliefs of others. If you live in the latter, you will enter this world as a blank canvas and as that canvas begins to fill in, you cannot find a single brush stroke of your own after your seventh year. My canvas, if you will, was almost entirely completed when this dawned on me.

“There was only room for a few more brushstrokes. I assumed that I had wielded the brush, but somehow a realization came over me that I was…I was actually a puppet. It was my hand that painted the canvas, but it was not my will to use a certain color or position a brush stroke — not a single brush stroke — where I wanted it. I wasn’t the one deciding its length or thickness upon the canvas. Those were done with hands that were not connected to my sense of self. To my wilderness.

“I had allowed everyone but me to paint on my canvas…my life. To determine who I was. When that realization came over me, I realized I needed new words, new beliefs, new feelings, and new behaviors. And all of these things needed to be in alignment to something that was of value. That was of hope and carried a promise that rang true, not for me, but for all. That was really the key to my…my redemption.”

She paused and took a deep look at the sea that was busy churning like a massive wheel of nature. “We can change. Anyone. The path to that wilderness is ours and only ours. Not a single other can lead us to our wilderness. And even if we stumble upon it in some sort of an illumination, we will return to our canvas and paint over just a small corner, and point to its miraculous nature, all the while the preponderance of the canvas remains of other hands.

“Over time, the miraculous loses its magnetism. And we return to stare at the painting that was made over many decades, with millions of brushstrokes. That instant of realization, somehow…somehow it manages to fade, even in the corners it becomes the underpaint for new brushstrokes invented by others.”

“So you’re saying the transformation can happen, but it can fade if it’s built exclusively on a rapturous or miraculous experience. If we hold the hopeful words that resonate within us, those can sustain us, and even help us repaint the canvas in the colors of these new words and beliefs. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

She nodded, pointing to the stairs that allowed safe passage from the heights of the cliffs to the beach, and back again. “I won’t be able to carry on the conversation when I’m climbing those stairs. So I will tell you now, and when I’m done, I’m going to concentrate on climbing those stairs.” She smiled at him, as he turned to face her.

“The whole thing is how do we produce this authentic feeling of interconnectedness within a field of separation, and then create with it embodiments of harmonious, unconditional love, not to anyone else’s standards, rather, to our very own. Everything I have ever said to you, is merely an offshoot of that fundamental beginning that came before that first day when the classroom of our universe availed itself to a higher intelligence in physical form.”

The woman clasped her left hand on the outside rail and began the climb.

The man, suddenly restless, reached out, touching her shoulder. “Please, one small question.”

She turned, nodding agreement.

He sighed ever so quietly. “How do we produce this feeling of interconnectedness?”

She turned to face the sea. “There is nothing to produce. It has been this way since a sovereign entered spacetime duality. It has always been for all of us, in our own way, living in the wilderness inside us.”

“How do I do that?”

“You already are. Everyone is creating these embodiments of love, it’s simply whether we usher them to reality from our wilderness or the painting by other hands. That is the only difference.”

“Then how do I usher them from my wilderness?”

 “You have to free them,” she said.

“Free them?” His face turned to puzzlement.

“Find those new words and feelings that pertain to interconnectedness and bring them into expression. Find the hopeful words, the beliefs of a sovereign intelligence that lives in unity and separateness at the same time, that is ever learning and teaching, that is ever in love with love. That is what is freed.”

“And where do they go?”

“I thought we already talked about that.”

“The embodiments?”

“They go there and there and there,” she pointed three times in various directions. “They are like sparks from a fire. There is a force behind the direction that a spark flies from its host, the fire. It goes up, transforms into a puff of smoke, and rises in the night air never to be seen again, completely separate from its source. Our embodiments are just like that. We do not know how they reverberate, yet we know they do.”

“How do we know?” he asked. “How do we know there’s a purpose in all of this…this life we live? Maybe it’s all just random physics and mathematics.”

“And that’s why the power of the words matter,” she nodded. “Their power is in their ability to answer doubt with logic. Without logic, the words are not sufficient.”

“And what logic are you speaking of?” he asked.

“The logic that even if a random world were possible, and it somehow managed to create a wilderness planet, populated with millions of different species, catapulting across an unknown universe with a charted course that is unseen by a single eye, it would still have purpose. Upon earth’s surface that purpose unveils itself in our lives, our conduct, our creations, the legacy we leave behind, the footprints of our heart and mind.

“If our life revolves around the Sovereign and Integral, and concepts like them, then we are evolving the Integral — all of us — in the direction of harmony and balance within spacetime duality. And regardless of whether there is a God, or a heaven and hell, or a nirvana, or a savior, or even a trillion lifetimes in purposeless succession awaits us, we can decide to use our logic and say to ourselves: I don’t care about these things from the outside, I choose to live according to the words that resonate inside my wilderness.

“That is logic. That is valor. To untether from the outside world and its influences. To walk away from the culture of separation. To create our own sense of logic from that wilderness that lives inside each of us.”

“One final question, and it’s a short one. I promise,” he looked at the woman with pleading eyes.

She nodded almost indiscernibly. “One question, my friend, and then I really must begin my climb. Are you coming with me?”

“I think I’ll stay on the beach and ponder our conversation.”

“Good choice. Now, what is your last question?”

His hand went over his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun, as if to improve his ability to read her face when he asked his question. “Were you really in an insane asylum?”

She stood perfectly still for a moment or two. Not a single expression crossed her face. “Perhaps when we meet again I will answer your question, if it still matters then. However, I will need the opportunity to ask you some questions first.” She smiled, turned and walked up the stairs, counting the numbers as she went. “One, two, three, four…”

She stopped at “five”, and turned to look at the man, who by this time, was already walking to the shoreline.

“One final answer for your consideration,” she said loudly, competing with the sound of the surf.

The man instantly turned around. “Yes?”

She pointed to her head. “This kind of logic can only arise from two words: Sovereign Integral. And these two words can only arise in a purpose-filled world. When they do, and we consume them and they become us, then this world moves towards a higher harmony. It listens a little better to the tugs and whispers of a hopeful future — not for you, not for me, not for us, not for them…for all. We can hasten this, or we can delay it. Choice.” She wagged her index finger. “If you ponder something, ponder this.”

She turned and continued her climb, hearing the words, “Thank you”, arise from the man’s lips. She could feel the distances. How she had climbed steeper stairs where fear lurked at every step. The divide was her canvas. People didn’t want to climb when they believed they had found the destination. Her distances were wider than most, more complex than most and more enlightening than most.

“It must be the salt air,” she said as she wiped a tear away. “Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven…”

The man walked right to the water’s edge, staring out to the sea. Not once could he hold his attention on one thing. There was so much movement. The waves, the very cusp when they suddenly bow to gravity and crash their full weight on the rocks scattered at the mouth of the bay. Everything was in motion — water and sky — as if elbowing the land’s solidity.

Then his mind turned inward, dancing with thoughts that had never entered before. Things that are both eternal and infinite, how can they evolve? Isn’t evolution a function of spacetime? the man thought.

And almost immediately he heard his mind step forward and answer. “Anything that is both eternal and infinite is in the act of practicing its memory in the span of a lifetime. We are doing this in order to live in the coherency of the Sovereign while living in spacetime duality.

“We realize that we cannot bring another eye and ear in spacetime to the same realization. We allow the evolution of the infinite and the observation of the eternal. We bring this into a union. The Sovereign is the infinite representative of the eternal Integral.

“We willfully align them, accept them, understand them, and enable them as partners, as we go about our single lifetime of awareness. And then we step back and let them enter, through us, into this world of humanness. And at that point an intelligence enters us, claiming every particle of our human, single lifetime identity, balancing new and old to create evolution of our memory — our shift of identity. The Integral evolves through spacetime.

Our collective identity across all species and spacetimes evolves. Everything is in spacetime. Everything. This is why there are an infinite variety of them. Integral intelligence creates sovereign identity, sovereign identity creates lifetime, lifetime creates learning for Integral intelligence. And this is the cycle of evolution at its very core. And like all cores, they are portals to other cores. This is who we are as an Integral focused in a Sovereign that lives in an infinite variety of lifetimes and life forms.

Believe the smallness of a human or the expansiveness of a Sovereign Integral. If we feel it is better to live in expansion rather than contraction or sameness, then we are more likely to feel the magnetism of the Sovereign Integral as our identity in process. It is not an instant realization nor a behavioral practice we perfect. We guide it into our lives through self-compassion and understanding. We move on to the next embodiments that await their creation through us. We love all to the best of our abilities.