For when you see that the universe cannot be distinguished from how you act upon it, there is neither fate nor free will, self nor other. There is simply one all-inclusive 'Happening,' in which your personal sensation of being alive occurs in just the same way as the river flowing and the stars shinning far out in space. There is no question of submitting or accepting or going with it, for what happens in and as you is no different from what happens as it.
—Alan Watts
In The Midst Of Amazement
I don't remember amazement being a large part of my early life. I do remember certain events which I deemed amazing. The Northern Lights, a lunar eclipse, my first earthquake, those Amazing Mets of 1969. Now, however, my life is one of constant amazement or perhaps my perspective has changed so that I see/witness the everyday through different eyes. I see the amazing in everything. The blooming of the flower, the sight of a walking stick hiding among the branches, being inside a rainbow. The amazing happens all the time but I just failed to see it as such. It is as if my eyesight had been fixed in seeing a particular way and now it has opened for a wider view of the world.
With the ocean less than 300 yards from my front door, I am able to walk its shore almost everyday. When the tide is out, I can walk up to the Barrier Reef to watch and listen to the majesty of the grand South Pacific. Today as I sat and soaked in these warm waters it started to rain. The sky darkened to the horizon, the waves became a bit stronger and the water began to feel cooler. I am already wet so there is no need to run to the house so I continued to sit and watch. Soon a school of small fish come up to my feet and start nibbling the dead skin cells from my toes. I remain perfectly still so as not to frighten them. They have no idea what or who I am other than a source of food. I begin to experience a cleansing of sorts. What my body naturally discards becomes food for their bodies. The flow and cycle of life all become one.
But the amazing is not limited to nature, it also happens between people and events in life. Yesterday on the taxi ride home I ask Michael, the driver, about catching the ferry to Suva, a twelve hour overnight voyage on a packed ship. I need to go there to work out my immigration situation and was trying to figure the best way of travel but I had not at this point told him why I needed to make the journey. A few minutes later our conversation was interrupted by a phone call he had to answer. It was the head of immigration asking Michael to pick her up at the ferry dock in Savusavu next Tuesday. She is one of his regular passengers when she comes to this island. He is going to arrange for me to meet her to discuss my issues and questions or to at least arrange a future meeting. This is living in amazement. I'm planning a trip and the person I need to see is coming here and I will have the opportunity to meet with her. "Be still and let the world come to you."
I love this life I live. This is everywhere I have ever wanted to be. This is the fulfillment of dreams I never had the imagination or faith to dream. I am In The Midst of Amazement. I am here! I am alive!
Photo Credit: Coconut On The Half Shell With Driftwood, Tao, Digital Image, 2011.