I’ve heard a lot about the value and power of self-examination. Of looking at one’s self (atonement) and one’s actions, motives and results thereof. Sometimes that happens at 3:00 a.m. in the wee, small hours of the morning (Good song title in there somewhere, eh?). What occurred to me this morning was the wonder and power of realizing that one comes into this world alone, and leaves it alone.

A major difference between looking and seeing is this. Looking has a seeking aspect to it, hence a hint of desperation. Seeing is the state of mind after the hunt and the meal. Self-examination partakes of becoming aware of the transitions between seeking and satiety, wanting and sufficiency; and the inevitable recurrence of that cycle. My observation is that in the sufficiency there is time to reflect and weigh what the examination has revealed.

Three o’clock in the a.m. seems to be an optimal time to get a reasonable perspective on ones life as it has been lived, not dreamt about or explained away. This morning’s conclusion is that this little being came into the world to do its best with what it had and the power to care, or not; to create or to destroy; to help or to distain. To look up or to look down. To give or take.

It turns out that it will always be a mix of some sort, but the main part is the give and the take. To offer and to accept. To breathe in and breathe out.

We have a sense that breathing is something we control and to a degree we do; but all those breaths all those heartbeats are accomplished because the mechanism, within which we seemingly dwell, does them following  laws of physics, air pressure, chemistry, hydraulics etc: However there is a part that follows no measurable law of the Universe and that is our choice, our volitional decision. Our choice in how we spend our time and expend our energy which is after all, finite.
Looking is practical. Seeing is a choice.

I choose to see that yes, I am alone but since this aloneness has choices, I can breathe deeply, I can be still and my heart rate drops and I can be All One.                                      The choice of no choice, it is how things are…

At Three-fifteen the birds

Start up expressing their

Heart’s desire to be alive

Alone and at One.