dust it is

Starting with something Margo wrote...

Dust

You are not aware of the dust particles floating all around you in the room you think is your own.
As you breathe, you are not aware of the dust particles you breathe in.
Most time you are hardly aware of breathing, leave alone being aware of breathing in little particles.
And dust particles are just an example.
It's mind-boggling, snooz-woggling how many "particles" float around, how many you breathe in and out.
And how little you are aware of them.
"You" is the everyday "you", not the Cosmic You who are aware of all; just so happens. But the particles don't mind.
Some of them are the size of a galaxy, and you are still able to take them in.
Some of them are smaller that the tiniest atoms, and still they are able to affect you.
Some have no size at all.
It doesn't mean they are exceptionally huge or exceptionally small. They simple have no size. They are not even "energy". But they exist all right.
And still they float around you, and still you breathe them in.
Some of them are sentient.
Most of them are sentient.
And you are not even aware of them.
Some of them are aware of you.
Some operate at a completely different frequency and float right through you without the smallest notice - or you float through them - or you both float through each other.
Dust particles are visible to us in the light.
These particles are visible in the light of awareness.
How do you turn it on?
Stop puffing. You are puffing now. Stop it.
Breathe in and out for a while - just watching your your breath, in and out, in and out, acknowledging it - in... and out... and in... and out...
Take a deep breath then - like drinking water after an exercise. Good. Good fresh water. This is to satisfy you immediate needs.
Now sniff gently - as gently as you dare. Sniff the reality. Make it slow. Make it so slow that the air warms up while travelling from your nose to your throat.
Feel the warmth of the flow.
Mark how delicate it is.
Feel how it's not continuous but how there are lots and lots of particles - a molecule of oxygen, a galaxy, a curious being...
And what's between them?
Nothing and no thing.
You may sneeze at the thought. But feel it nevertheless.
Feel how your nose is a marvellous portal that only lets in what is good for you, how your nose keeps you safe, saving your life with every breath you take.
Trace the particles, the guests of your nose, as they float to your lungs.
Don't try to influence the flow. Just watch.
Feel how the particles enter your lungs, the great trading harbour of yours. Feel the exchange they make there - each of its own kind, taking and giving according to their nature.
Feel how they leave the body by the same route, shining with satisfaction. Feel how your body is satisfied as well.

Then rest. In... and out... and in... and out...
Repeat if you like.
There are no rules to breathing.
You can't have a "wrong breath". It's impossible. If you ever have a "wrong" breath, you die.
It's your own breath, and no body can breathe for you.
Well, it depends on what is breath, doesn't it?
Sometimes even you don't breathe.
Taking air in and letting it out isn't "breathing", one might say.
One might say it's puffing.
Breathing is an art we all are. We art breath.
The fine art of...

Thanks Margo - that's awesome :-)

And now for something from the gnomiki...

Dancing with the vortex

Welcome to the midnight hour – zero time – come down from your pre-eminence, come dance with all that is...

It was after midnight. Merry had been fiddling around with things, not really getting anywhere – just doing stuff.

What kind of stuff?

Oh – you know – internet, messaging, sorting out whatever needed sorting out – wanting to stop and read the book he’s enjoying so much, but held by things as we so often are.

Held by things? Sounds a bit ominous.

You’re right. They’re like limpets. They suck you into stuff – whatever thing you’re doing – and then give you the notion to move onto another thing until you’ve thinged half the night away, and you’re ready to hit the sack, drained by their carefully dangled carrot.

What carrot?

They play on our love of completion, love of sorting stuff out, love of what not.

What not?

We’re creators, so we love to transpose the infinite, the indeterminate, the quantum superstate into something meaningful here in 3D. We love to transpose all into every-thing.

And that’s what not?

Yeah – it doesn’t really matter what it is – because what is transposed thing in any shape or form.

And?

Well, thing doesn’t exist in itself.

It doesn’t? How can you be so sure?

I can-not, if you see what I mean. No... thing’s not in the sense that you are.

Play that one back one more time.

Ok – I’ll reverse it. In the same way you simply are – conscious awareness – life itself – what is fundamentally not.

...is not what?

Is only alive – is only present in the isness of conscious awareness with your assistance – to the extent that it can control or ride on your brainwaves.

Is that so?

Yes. What not is itself nothing

– but becomes everything when we allow it to take over our mind’s awareness.

So we shouldn’t?

Shouldn’t what?

Allow it to take us over.

Why not?

Because it sounds bad.

Yes, it sounds pretty bad, but making rules of what we should or should not do is failing to take into consideration the nature of Is. Rules are in fact things that come from what not. They love rules. They love us making rules, because with the help of rules they are able to ensnare us like flies in a web – and all the time we imagine we’re improving reality. The irony! Reality is perfect as it is – and has no need of rules. Every rule you create is a spanner in the wheel of Is. It’s like a monkey trying to improve a computer with the rock in its hand.

So no rules?

That in itself comes perilously close to being a rule.

Then what?

Not what.

What do you mean?

I don’t mean. Meaning is a form of thinging isn’t it... You see every way you turn your mind’s trying to steer you back into their way of doing things.

My mind? Why would it do that?

Presumably because it likes working with them. It’s evidently fun in some way and must give tangible results or we wouldn’t continue working for them.

Eugh! Sounds creepy.

Sounds creepy, but this is really quite natural. How else were we to make our way further and further into material reality? We couldn’t have done it without them, and they couldn’t learn about conscious awareness without us.

So “not what” – what's that refer to?

It doesn't, if you see what :-)

Not really :-(

Well... what is the thing-ing function of 3D mind.  It’s fairly automatic now, isn’t it – but at first – when we started working with them, it required constant effort and application to master the knack of what-not-ing.

It did?

Yes. We come from source – the infinite - the isness of be. To turn everything on its head and try to fit our cosmic presence into a little rational box of 3D material reality seemed strange to say the least.

Then why did we do it?

Presumably in order to arrive at where we are now.

And where exactly are we now?

At the point of no return.

Oh dear Merry – that does sound sinister.

That’s because it is – sinister – but not in the sinister sense of the word.

Then in what sense?

In the not-what unextrapolated sense. Sinister, as in left handed or the left turn. Instead of turning right as we’d normally do, we’ve made a gimongous sinister left turn and crossed the event horizon, the point of no return.

Which is what?

Well, it’s something quite astonishingly spectacular. You see we’ve gone so far into material reality that we can no longer reverse out. The only way is forward – and yet we have not the faintest clue how to proceed as we got so confused arriving at where we now are that we...

We what?

We dot dot dot...

?

That’s where we go through a kind of mental breakdown, except it’s not “down” at all. Quite the opposite in fact. Without knowing how or why, where or when, not to mention what – we find ourselves back on track. Effectively we’ve passed through the mythical eye of the needle – or like the phoenix we’ve rebirthed through the philosophical fire of what-is-not.

Philosophical fire? I thought you said it was a way of thinging, not thinking?

Yes, such is the nature of thought. We’re forever thinking one thing when in fact it’s another, or even more confusing – no thing at all.

Nothing at all? How can something be no thing at all?

It can’t, of course, and yet it seems to happen on a regular basis, which led some of the greatest philosophers to conclude that nothing is what it seems. The sheer brilliance of this observation left the entire universe breathless and flabbergast for longer than I care to mention.

But – er – why?

Why?

Yes, why should they be so impressed by something so ordinary?

Ordinary? It’s transcendental wisdom. The stuff of highest high.

I think you’re overreacting. It’s obvious that nothing is what it seems. What something seems is always going to be slightly, yet fundamentally, different from what it truly, simply is – isn’t it.

Well yes – but for human beings to come up with this in spite of everything they were experiencing down here in material reality – that was what blew us away.

It did?

Yes. Can’t you feel it?

I can – er – feel some of your excitement.

Do you want to feel more?

Yes – if that’s possible.

Of course it is. I’ll guide you back into your conscious-awareness. Hold tight. This is going to feel decidedly trippy.

Whhhhhhhhhhhoooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See what I mean?

Oh my God. That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt.

Yes, and that’s what you guys gave us, just by arriving at the point of no return, and then, in spite of all your hesitancy and seeming blindness, proceeding onwards – into the...

The what?

Well that’s the trouble. From your perspective you were falling off a cliff. There was no what to proceed into.

Whyever not?

Because what only deals with thinging – and you were heading back into isness – so you were completely unable to see anything whatsoever. It was a leap. An act of faith. A mad moment of massive, inspired intuition – and you did it – even as you told one another that you hadn’t, wouldn’t and weren’t going to. You did it. And doing it you tripped the switch.

What switch?

The circuit switch.

Circuit switch?

Yes. You entered a new circuit, completed or closed the old.

We did?

Yes. What not no more – you discovered not what – your new PD.

PD?

Prime directive.

Er?

Oh, you know – the basic operating instruction such as “go forth and multiply”.

So we’ve had a change of PD?

Absolutely. Instead of thinging what not, you’re now not-whatting thing.

Not-whatting thing?

Yes.

Er – which means? Could you elucidate?

Yep. Not-whatting is another way of saying you’re now again is-ing.

Is-ing?

Yes. Marvellous isn’t it?

I don’t know. I don’t want to sound stupid.

Don’t worry about that. It matters not how you sound. The idiot that you seem to be is in fact your greatest achievement.

Oh thank you very much.

You’ll know what I mean in a short while.

The idiot – you say. That’s hardly respectful...

Respectful? Switch off the what-matters mind for a moment – tune into the isness – what I really said as opposed to what you imagined I said.

And?

And you can feel, sense, see that the idiot is a technical description – just like H2O.

I don’t think that makes me feel any better.

No, because you’re still engaging the mind-of-matter drive. Disengage that one and come into your isness. See the idiot for what it truly is.

Ah! What it is. You mean we managed to become thing itself? We shifted from I am to it... we crossed the parallel lines of equation into the other side – into thing.

Yes. Amazing isn’t it. Only a true master could have accomplished that one – so my hat off to you all.

Well, we’re hardly masters – there are 7 billion of us on the planet playing at being idiots, out of our minds in what-not.

Er... ever heard of holograms?

Yes, why?

Well, I don’t know how to break this to you Zie, but there aren’t really 7 billion of you at all...

What do you mean?

Can you feel the resistance? The idiot has to fight this one. The idiot knows it’s crucial it doesn’t accept that which fundamentally is – otherwise he/ she/ it loses the power to continue thinging.

I’m not sure I wish to continue thinging. I think I’ve had my fill of it, and humanity likewise is ready to return to its natural state of Is.

Then release. The proof is in the pudding.

What pudding?

Release whatever it is that has a hold over you – that’s holding you in it – the idiot.

I wish you wouldn’t refer to me that way.

That’s it – isn’t it. You’re in fact completely indifferent to this – knowing you cannot be an idiot, in fact, yet part of you has chosen to identify with it – and doesn’t want to stop doing so.

What would you know about it Merry – you’ve never experienced the darkness, the hell, the pain, the isolation...

That’s it Zie – let it out, don’t hold back. Experience your anger. Experience your lonely desolation. And remember.

Remember what?

Not what... not any thing at all – not... not... not... through the breath, through the conscious awareness, the body, the sensations, experience it and feel yourself whole again – wholly present in this unlimited, rule-less isness of be.

Oh! But how can I live without rules and restrictions? It’s all I know.

Yes, up to a point.

Up to which point? Oh, don’t tell me – the point of no return.

Precisely. You’ve already passed it and now everything is helping you to remember, rediscover and awaken to your re-emerging, incipient isness.

Oh. Oh... Oh.

Excellent. I feel you coming along leaps and bounds.

I feel strangely detached, and yet present... I feel –

Yes. Words fail, do they not – but that’s ok – we have other ways of expressing, tangiblising our feelings.

We do?

Yes. That’s what I’m here for.

For what?

To guide you back to the inner child.

How’s that going to help?

Because the inner child has never forgotten... is spontaneous, creative, flexible – willing to learn anything, and has no programmed belief that it can-not.

Cannot what?

Can-not any thing.