in all things, i look for the ways we are the same. every day i listen to the soundbites of the chatter we exchange, and what i hear is the hunger to connect, to tell someone. we want to be seen, held, and heard. we want to own some visual, visceral, felt recognition that we are here. that there is progress in our evolution. that all the effort, watering, plowing through, will yield something that feeds us.

today is one of those days where i feel saturated in simplicity and complexity. i can hear the swooshing of my heart in my ears. i cry when i read or witness anything that recognizes our need for love. i have awareness of the density of this cup, the bitterness of this tea, the hum of electricity rising from the keyboard and into my fingertips. i taste date sugar in my teeth, tenderness in my belly, gaps in my cognition.

and i know that you also know what this experience is. to be stimulated and depleted. to be starved and stuffed. surrendered and resisting. to be nothing and everything. here and there. the same.

and to need to bury our faces in the words and shoulders and stories of someone else who gets it.

Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows. ~Nisargdatta Maharaj

photo: the view as the fog lifted. santa barbara. october 2011.