The beauty in a single grain of rice can sustain us. I mean this both literally and figuratively as well as serving as a challenge and a defiant brave coming out-of-the-closet proclamation.
The last few days I’ve been in and out of a state of what I will refer to as enlightenment or joy or God or something like that. Let’s called it Nirvana, since they are one of my favorite bands. I know that some of what I have been experiencing is extremely unique to me and personal yet some of it is universal. The central idea is that when I return to presence, regardless of what brings me there or what I flow through and into during and after and in-between I am filled with peace and wonder. I keep looking out the window as if I am communicating with the giant partially rotting tree stump that I split wood upon, covered with ivy and likely housing the winter sustenance of a busy little squirrel that I have seen venture into its interior now and again. I am expecting the tree to say something, maybe it is waiting for me to begin the conversation?
This talk was tentatively titled “I could write an entire lifetime on a single topic”. But as I began to type the image of a bowl of rice appeared most accessible, so I started there. Currently following a low carb diet I had a small feeling of sadness for the realization that I would likely not be having a bowl of rice any time soon. The bowl tried to expand into a different topic that involves Steve Martin (bonus points if you some how can explain why that makes sense to me!) but then collapsed into a small warm bumpy aromatic grain of sushi rice. Somehow the single grain remained warm in my mind, it is still warm.
When I am not feeling well, a bowl of rice with butter or a bowl of miso soup or really any clear broth soup is like a big hug from a long lost relative.
We could spend the rest of the afternoon going deeper and deeper into that single grain of rice or explode outward with such speed as to view it from the other side of the universe. The whole universe could and really maybe should become rice.
When I am in this place I feel nothing but compassion and love and amazement and peace and understanding as well as feeling the need to share all of this. When I am successful in doing so (several times at Costco yesterday for example) I can feel that the world is happier and healthier and I too am in that echo boom. It can take the form of asking an elderly woman (very slowly adding the last item from her cart to her car parked in a handicap place) if I could return her cart to the cart return for her which I am going to walk by on the way to my car. All my problems vanish. I am bullet proof-ish for a while.
This journey of clicking on my keyboard this morning took me to places I wasn’t thinking I would visit. I hope it did for you as well. Just stop and look deeply into whatever is before you; it is perfect. Then breath.
