“I am not a singularity, I am multiplicity.” That thought and the image of an apple tree laden with fruits by a small lake became recurrent this week, keeping me company in brief flashes, while brushing my teeth, washing the dishes in the kitchen or walking the streets of city.
“My body is a family. Think about it, all those little cells entangled, each one behaving as if were myself — me, an individuality!” I adjust the goose feather pillow and try to sleep.
I wake up early, with the wind blowing through the windows — maybe it was a cyclone at sea again. I drink my cup of tea and the wind whistles the thoughts: “My angels sing to me, although I cannot hear.” My dear angels, always loving, warming, guiding, protecting me and, thus, I do not forget my child spirit that smiles at me. They are my beloved family, my own soul they are.
“Singularity is an illusion, I am a totality! ” And all this whisper just to realize that I am a totality and the multiplicity that it brings is always present in every gesture, every intention. The family is always there and, on second thought, there is no reason to ask, but only to know and allow, as there is no separation. I am a totality!
I watch the city lights and conclude that I am never alone. My living is collective in all moments. We work as a team at all times, creating and performing individually or not. So, the intention always contemplates the whole, inside or outside me.
Asking becomes a drama when I see myself as a singularity, even if I am with other people. Individualism, confused power relations come to the fore, casting shadows of the past everywhere. But, when I realize that I am a multiplicity, a family, it becomes natural to feel each person or being that approaches as part of that family. That is how I discover myself, and there is always a certain mystery to this encounter.
I can be alone on a trail or adventuring with a group, exchanges and collaboration become natural if I perceive myself as family, as totality.
When I return to the image of that apple tree full of ripe fruits, its abundance and the truth and depth of the small lake that nourished it, I understand that knowledge is beyond the singular-plural duality. It is in the consciousness of wholeness. And in that awareness, I don’t need to worry or think about abundance and generosity, because in that awareness is creativity, life, love, the very flow of things that permeates and surrounds me, and where I discover myself once again as family, I discover myself as Gaia.
September, 2020.
Maris. 