Reflection for Independence Day

Dear Reader,

We humans are creatures who like to nest, aren’t we?

We create homes that are nested within communities. The community may be one of several nested within a town or city, which is nested within a region, nested within a country, nested within a continent. That continent represents a portion of our planet, Earth…

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

In fact, instead of following this external progression, I could look inward and say that we humans are creatures made of nests and compartments – energetic systems, psychological systems, physical systems, organs, tissue, cells – each getting smaller and smaller.

What, from all that, do we choose to identify with? Our individual self? Our biological family? Our country of origin? Or, perhaps, do we choose to identify with a sports team, a high school or university, a religion or an occupation?

So many choices! And are our choices to identify conscious – or not?

When we identify with a particular group, location, or activity, we bring a sense of order and understanding to our immediate world, which can be comforting as life becomes more complex. That is, after all, what life in its essential nature does – it unfolds toward complexity.

But what do we lose by identifying with one group and not another? And how much complexity can we take? Just how complex will life get as it unfolds, anyway? How do we embrace the seeming contradictions and differences we experience every day?

To me, the answer is simple.

As best I can, I open to the opportunity for “unity experiences,” where I can enter a state of oneness, in which I leave the world of form and structure behind and experience the eternal. The reminder of unity, that all things – including me – are one thing, allows me to renew and maintain my perspective on the world of form and all the various nests I have made along the way.

I am.

And so are you.

I honor your loving heart,

John