Space and Time
It is said that time is the fourth dimension. But this is not an article about physics. Musing about the inner space and time.
My husband put up five hummingbird feeders pretty much as soon as we arrived at our family home away from home, a week and a half ago. We have spent much time since delightedly watching these colourful acrobats of the air audibly rush in from a nearby tree to sip from one, then another, and, again with a brrrr of their rapid wings, vanish back somewhere.
They seem to defy both space and time in how they move, hover, veer. Hummingbirds can be very fierce with each other if too many begin to compete for the same feeder.
(Too many can be just two or three, especially in the critical minutes just before sunset, when they know they are running out of time and light, and perhaps too knowing that the feeders will be put away inside until the new day begins.)
Watching these beautiful and entrancing little beings defy space and time with their maneuvers makes me think of inner space and time. Being in a completely different place with a totally different routine, away from the places and the people in my usual day to day, creates a new kind of space in a number of ways, in which the passage of time becomes, let's say, more wibbly-wobbly Timey-Wimey than usual.
It is not that this is utterly a vacation. I still put in a lot of hours in virtual meetings as well as communicating by email, WhatsApp, and phone, and doing social media updates on my work pages. I also have talked to a number of friends since I have been here and have more conversations planned during our stay.
But it is impossible here not to experience an inner transition into another reality. Or Reality As It is in an unfamiliar way.
The sheer natural beauty of my island home, the place of my roots, astounds me over and over and the usual discursive mind keeps stuttering to a stop.
What can mind say in the face of these hummingbirds, these amazing tropical flowers in their astonishing colours, this warm Caribbean sea with all its waves diffusing from the coral reef? The darling little crabs skittering across the sand into their hidey-holes. The heron we followed along the beach yesterday, letting us get quite close but always sufficiently out of reach.
The discursive mind still can get drawn into heated discussions, don't get me wrong, in the context of work or family. I haven't utterly left the usual plane of existence.
It is more that the inner distance, the space of wonder, engendered by these surroundings creates a distinct context for the usual dinnings of politics and other human conflicts. They cannot hold me in the usual thrall.
I keep falling into a helpless wonder at the incredible beauty of the surroundings. And how dear are humans, in their sufferings and seekings. Wanting so much, so busy, so hungry for connection and meaning.
Like in the Cat Stevens song, everything emptying into white.
Brought To Tears
Something Ink and Light by Nat Hale shared yesterday, a kind of social media invitation to sharing, about the things that elicit powerful emotions, and whether or not we are generally emotional, made me stop. Usually I love these kinds of things. And I was intrigued by this. But I didn't jump right in and post this time.
I am a very emotional person. I laugh loudly and often. If I am in a crowded room you will probably easily spot me thus. I also am frequently moved to tears by music, the love of friends and of the other dear beings in my life, by the beauty of existing in this dew-drop world that is fragile and ephemeral, wherein there is no experience that lasts.
Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Stadt
From Brahm's German Requiem, often described as one of the most human requiems ever composed, this movement is about the transitory nature of life. We have no abiding city here. The world is not my home, I'm just passing through.
This temporary nature of experience creates a built-in poignancy to every wonder-filled and joyous moment because by definition it will end.
So sitting here this early morning in the dark of pre-dawn, listening to the chirring of insects, and the occasional sound of this bird or that, tears sting the backs of my eyes. Not grief, but not just joy. Feeling many emotions at once or perhaps none.
What makes me cry?
No wonder I could not answer that question. Because what doesn't make me cry? That should be easier to answer, though at this moment, nothing comes to mind.
In this inner expansiveness that I had been gifted somehow, everything is unbearably precious and beautiful and worthy of love.
Even people I normally would look at with disdain elicit more compassion and sadness because of the magnitude of their suffering and that suffering which moves around and through them to others in their reach.
This dew-drop world.