Life on a Violin String

Over at my blog friend Diane Walker's place yesterday, she wrote about the need to find balance between 'the now' and wishing for 'the future'. Diane writes,

And I'm thinking that this is part of why choosing the spiritual path is so challenging: how do we maintain that constant balance between being attentive to, accepting and appreciating and finding divine wisdom in the now while at the same time working to improve and enhance our abilities as compassionate thoughtful service-oriented beings in the world?

Wednesday night, at my meditation group, where I went after leaving T at the hospital, I sat in a circle with five others and let music and energy flow through me. It was an hour of pure bliss, of much needed respite from a difficult and long day.

The last piece Del, our leader, played was Vaughn Williams, The Lark Ascending. I felt the notes move through me. Felt the call of the single violin piercing my skin, its plaintive notes reaching deep within me. There was a painful exquisiteness in its beauty. A sound so pure all other sound evaporated and only that piercing ring of the violin bow sliding across the strings remained vibrating in the air all around me.

Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I moved into that space where I felt at One, with the One, of the One, the One. That space where I know, deep deep within me that I am not alone. That I am One with the Universe. One with the greatness and magnificence and beauty of all that is miraculous in our human being.

As can only happen in the creative space of my imagination, I saw myself balanced upon a violin string. It takes precision, concentration, delicate balance to stay poised on a violin string. To not teeter and totter to the pull of the string vibrating against my feet. To let the resonance of each note, each vibration flow through me without disturbing my peace of mind, without catapulting me into oblivion.

It was a beautiful place to be in balance, to lie stretched along the string and know, all is well in the world around me. All is as it should be.

And then, a note caught me, a riff captured my imagination and I was off following a butterfly into long golden grasses, fluttering from flower to flower.

And I fell off.

Into the void of nothing more than blind faith holding me up amidst the shattered fragments of my being shimmering in the light of a thousand mirrors.

And that was when my 'knowing' deepened.

Life holds out the illusion that what we do is what matters. That each step, each dance, each ephemeral composition of notes played, steps not taken, strings not plucked, adagios crescendoed, makes the difference.

Life, deep abiding unfettered life is experienced in the how. How we step, how we dance, how we compose and play the notes, pluck the strings, crescendo the adagio that makes the difference...

to whether we stay balanced,

or fall off the string

and become

shattered reflections

of all that mattered to us in life.

I sat in the meditation circle last night and connected to the soul of me, that deep place of knowing I do not need

I do not need

to yearn

to strive

to stretch

or prod or even do

In the pure note of a violin string plucked with exquisite beauty, I fell with grace and ease into that place that knows, in being effortlessly who I am, I do not need to grasp on, hold on, or hold still.

I simply need to be open, to expand into my being, into my knowing, I am One.

and then, to stay open to the experience. to not try to achieve the 'same' feelings again, to not 'make' magic happen but to simply 'let it be'.

As we chatted after the meditation, Del said, "That's persona Louise. The wanting to recapture the moment of oneness. To want to experience 'it' again." And he paused and added, "Let it be so that you can be of service in your being present in the world."

I let his words settle into me. Let the feeling of 'striving' for the moment butt up against the knowing, I am in and of the moment when I am being of service.

and I knew.

My ego wants to hold onto what it experienced because it 'knows' that experience and is not fearful of what is next if it can reclaim what was.

My ego attempts to recapture what was so that I can have what it believes I want. Control.

I do not need control.

I simply need to let go and let it be. Let go and let God.

My soul knows. It knows it is not the holding on that makes the difference.

It's the letting go.

Letting be.

I breathed, let go of the moment and Let It Be. I let it be and let God take hold of me.

And all was well with my world.

All is Divine.