I can no longer represent them as such. They are quite simple. Come to think of it, my deepest inquiry and my striving to “make sense of it all” during this retreat was met with answers that elicited a gut response of “It can't be that simple.” I literally said that out loud, and likely ten times as much internally, as I followed thought after thought to an eventual conclusion: It is quite simple after all.
During my lengthy internal exploration, I focused on mindful walking meditation and on dissecting questions regarding "the roots and trunk" of my beliefs and feelings, from where so many branches of doubt, insecurity, critique and angst have sprouted and spread. “Who Am I” was the core root question. It is the ultimate existential inquiry into the self, one’s identity and their place in the greater body of existence.
This specific journey of internal inquiry relied on my being open to letting go of control, identifying feelings of discomfort as an indicator that an unsettling emotion or belief existed, and confronting that would require my full attention. I had to find, follow, comprehend and ultimately untie the “knots caused by thoughts”.
I came into this mental space assuming I had already "arrived” at a heightened place of insight and understanding. For the past several years, my path and attention have been focused on meditation, Stoicism and trying to incorporate Zen/Tao philosophies into how I live each day.
While leaning back and focusing on the relaxing movement of the increasingly vibrant and detailed clouds moving above me, awaiting some impending epiphany, I prematurely determined that I would simply "ride out" the waves of discomfort and gentle nausea I was experiencing, while waiting for the session to run its course, and that would be it.
I was resisting letting go. Even though I had read and watched enough beforehand regarding this path and process, I held onto a need to maintain control out of discomfort with the unknown, and perhaps a subconscious fear of what I might experience by doing so.
My friend, seasoned at and deeply understanding of how this sort of experience and self-inquiry works best, gave me a subtle prompt. He suggested that getting up and walking about on the patio in a mindful manner might help release some of the anxiety. And to follow, not avoid, any waves of discomfort I was experiencing. He was guiding me to “go with the flow” of my thoughts.
I briefly rejected and then hesitantly accepted and followed his suggestion. I rose from the couch, stepped out onto the patio, and proceeded to pace about while feeling an increasing sense of uncertainty. And fear.
Pacing slowly, feeling stable yet apprehensive of rapid motion, I tried to remind myself why I was there in the first place. I wanted something out of this and was now in it. It was time, then, to find that “something.”
I started directing my thoughts towards that goal, towards the purpose of this whole endeavor. I had come there to get help sorting through a knotted ball of life experiences that ultimately led me to seek continuous harmony and connection. To be completely present and self-aware, confident and resolved. In simple terms, I sought the answer to that three-word statement: “Who Am I?”.
As that came into my conscious thought, I internally acknowledged it as my intention, my “quest”. I stopped walking at that very instance and gasped slightly as I pondered the magnitude and significance of such an inquiry.
My pause and modest gasp trigged an immediate observation from my friend on the patio. “That.” He said. Briefly and simply. “Whatever that was, follow it.”
I stood still for a moment. I felt trepidation but also a resolve, a sense of desire, and an intention to do just that. To follow that surfacing question. “Who Am I?”
I looked at the path gently ascending the back hillside behind his home, leading from the patio. “OK,” I said. “…I’m going to go walk with this.”
As I headed along the stone steps leading upwards, I started talking aloud to myself. I needed my guidance and felt compelled to speak softly as I walked, narrating my thoughts and questions. Working to stay focused on where my answers came from and where they might lead me next. Talking to myself was less of a conscious intention than an innately understood necessity. I knew I had to keep looking into each response with a continued inquiry.
It was working. I walked up the path slowly, saying, “Who am I? I am Geoff. Who is Geoff? What does “Geoff” even mean? Am I my body? Am I my thoughts? What are my thoughts? How do I define myself… describe Geoff… what defines my identity?”.
The answers led to more questions, layers, and words (along with struggles finding words) and trying my best to compartmentalize an understanding of “self” within the constrained construct of words (let alone any one person’s interpretation of those words.)
I thought deeply about who I feel I “am,” answering my questions and asking more in return. “I’m Geoff. I’m not my body, my body is a… is a… is a container, a vehicle, a vessel…, yes, my body is a vessel, I exist in it but beyond it… so where do I exist and what does “existence” mean?”
The questions came along quickly, with each answer’s repetitive and increasingly rapid challenge. “What is spirit? How do I know I am spirit? What is that even made of…”.
I would frequently stop to catch my breath each time a clue, a response, a breadcrumb of truth or insight came to mind. Each time I’d speak the answer out loud, sometimes repeatedly, to reinforce each ‘step’ and each subsequent insight to evaluate.
I was completely in an “inner groove” at this point. Fully aware, connected to and dissecting my limited understanding as I worked with a fierce commitment to follow these thoughts to each subsequent level.
I had the massive epiphany that “I” am, in the simplest term, “Love”. That was a ‘landing point’ for me to stop and reflect on. As I’d walk and my thoughts would find answers, the more substantive concepts necessitated my sitting down to internalize the realizations fully. The thought that I am “love” was a valued moment of recognition, yet I wanted to follow that further. As I sat and processed that I was “love,” I wanted to understand what “love” was, so I would stand up again, continue walking, continue voicing my questions, and continue sorting through the feelings as they arose.
I came to recognize that my view of myself as “love” was a genuine insight into my intention. My mindset. My views of the world and aspirations to be present and mindful. My high level of sensitivity and empathy.
I’ve previously identified myself as a “highly sensitive person”, a classification of personality type that inherently taps into and feels the pain of others, feels sad for the suffering in the world, and even feels responsible for the unmet needs of others in our lives, often taking on the blame as being the cause of upset and disappointment.
I gasped at that point. I suddenly became very conscious and aware of my true essence, Love, and the lack of protection I provided myself from the guilt I took on, without realizing then that it was never mine to pick up and carry in the first place.
I stopped. I sat. I talked it all over. The childhood insecurities. The seeking of approval. The guilt I felt for not being the husband Linda wanted, for failing to be the parent and role model I wanted to be. Why? Why did I feel such responsibility for what I was incapable of or did not know then?
If I am ‘love’ and have nothing but good intentions, how could I do anything bad? How could I be accused of behaving maliciously, inconsiderately or being harmful?
I got up to walk and think again, in motion. I was coming to some pivotal insights and realizations while fighting to stay focused and follow this through.
The nausea I’d felt earlier gradually dissipated as I explored these feelings. Each time something that caused me discomfort came to mind, chasing it and examining it gave me a sense of stability and calm, and the negative feelings ceased.
I started to combine all of the ideas and findings related to being “love,” seeking goodness, wanting an understanding, and finding forgiveness. This led me to the point of standing mid-way along the trail and taking in the space surrounding me.
I looked at all of nature: the trees, boulders, weeds, flowers, dirt, twigs, sprouting seedlings, and I was suddenly gasping again, whispering to myself as I spread my arms wide to address and encompass the complete realization that “love” is absolute consciousness.
And that “consciousness” is nature.
And that nature is “energy.”
All around us. Life, death, rebirth, all of it. At a cellular level, a molecular level, an atomic level, we’re simply a collection of energy that exists as a rock, a twig, a branch, an insect, a bird in flight—a person walking on a hillside contemplating their existence.
At this point, I started trying to reconcile how “simple” this insight was. How simple it felt to realize that my life, all life, is simply a moment in nature. I am a combination of energy, influences, intentions, and thoughts. I am infinite and finite, all at once.
I had to sit down again. I needed to process and face perhaps my deepest conflicts.
Even with all the time spent confronting my own mortality, and being present with our kids to experience Linda’s last gasping breath, all of the logical perspectives and rational thoughts don’t account for the real sense of accepting the inevitable. That I WILL die. At some point in the relatively not-to-distant future, I will cease to exist. I will no longer be experiencing life in this realm, in this space, in this manner, on this plane.
I felt a wave of nausea consume me.
I got up. Again. I started walking and talking. Again. I even said, “I don’t want to die,” out loud as I wrestled to turn inward and assess the source of my ill feelings. I didn’t want to accept this, yet in parallel, as I recognized the absolute inevitability that the existence and consciousness awareness that I’ve been experiencing for 61 years would come to an absolute end, I stopped before a dead burnt branch alongside the path. A remnant of fires that had happened well before the house was built below it.
I knelt and touched the blackened branch, asking, “…where is my Dad?” That was my thought. “Where is my Dad? Where is Linda? Where will I be once I’m gone?”.
My father was buried in Germany decades ago. Linda’s physical remains lie in a cemetery up the street from the location of her Father’s childhood home in Saratoga. If my wishes are followed, I’ll be buried in a ‘natural’ fashion somewhere in the mountains - no coffin or container, just a body in a shroud placed into the ground, to decompose, to become nutrients and to continue on in another manner. To become a component in the ongoing life cycle that comes from a decomposing body or even from the energy of a burnt tree limb.
Although he is “dead,” my father remains within me. Linda remains within me, our children, and her family. My aunt remains with me, her husband and my cousins. They are “dead,” their “vessels” are burned or buried, yet their presence lingers. As an awareness. A consciousness. An energy that is a component of who I am, right now.
This presence is something not only within me but wholly unique to me. My mother’s consciousness of my father differs from mine, as my awareness of Linda’s energy within my life does when compared to the energy she may have imparted to her close friends and acquaintances. Each combination of energy and exchange of influence and thought in each life has its unique impact and resonance.
I sat calmly, looking at the burnt branch for the longest time. I reflected on my father’s concurrent absence and presence. On Linda’s death and the weight of conflicted emotions surrounding our shared experience that I still bore. I thought about my kids, Jennifer, and our shared energy and interactions. I thought about my place in their lives, theirs in mine, how I have lived, loved, responded, resisted, compromised, sacrificed and struggled. Above all, I contemplated my intentions throughout it all. And then questioned what of me may remain once I depart from this physical experience.
I felt a complete sense of overwhelming peace with all of it. A reconciliation with what simply “is.” That all of the energy surrounding us includes us. We are not separate at all. We are consistently connected to and influencing this energy, this presence, with every thought, action, interaction and reaction. Like cells working in unison or under the stress of chaos, we collaborate and collide. We attract compatible energy to us. We push away what does not align with our seemingly ‘magnetic’ field. We gravitate towards what nourishes us. We strive to thrive and survive. To continue. To exist. As such, we might support and coordinate in some ways yet encroach and overtake, without malice, in others. We are merely acting out our nature.
I spent 20 years wrestling with my relationship with Linda. How we came together, including with concessions and a sense of obligation. My limited ability to effect a change in her outlook or her on mine. How we became parents, the demands of being a sole provider, the difficulties managing anxieties and uncertainties, and the fact that we never really had the solid foundational baseline intimacy and connection that would have made all the difference in the world to the time we shared.
On that hillside and in that house that day, I confronted the resentment I held that my character, my good-natured, positive intentions behind all of my concessions and efforts, was never fully recognized or appreciated. I looked at what I realized was her frequent admonishment when I deviated from her expectations of the world, of a marriage, of a husband and a father. I stood back and took inventory of the baggage I’d taken on from that one relationship, let alone the baggage I carried around related to all the other life events that led to my continued self-doubt and self-esteem issues.
I gasped once more. I stopped and repeated my thoughts out loud, over and over again – “the baggage” I carried. The baggage I’d taken on. The baggage that had been weighing me down. I recognized something pivotal at that moment, in that instance, with this insight.
“I” took it. “I” carried it. “I” bore its weight all these years. Why? Why would I do that? Why would I accept the opinions of others? Why would I allow something to be put upon me that I didn’t want?
Because I didn’t know any better, I had no opinion of myself that was more important to me than that of somebody else. Than acceptance. I never accepted myself as a genuinely good person, regardless of how anybody else saw me. I strived to prove my value to others, yet I never loved myself fully and unconditionally or with as much conviction and certainty as I know I have loved others and others have loved me. Enough to ignore and nonchalantly wave away any disparaging or dismissive observations of my character as them not knowing “me.” All without resentment on my part, as they are just involved in their own nature, path, and experience as I am in mine.
I reflected once more on the feelings I had just expressed, my resentment for Linda’s questioning of my character, core nature, and the kind of person I am. She was not my problem. She was my teacher. She was “my path”. She, along with dozens of other substantial influences that were also my path, is exactly how I arrived at this moment mentally, physically, and spiritually. I owe them all gratitude for their role in doing so.
Now, things get deep; stay with me.
I went from reflecting on and confronting resentment and frustration with my 1st marriage to embracing every nuance of the gift that was the time we spent together. Because it brought me to this point. None of it was wasted or lost time, it was how this all came about. It is my reality, my path, my experience in full. And it’s all valuable. I felt and expressed at that moment the deepest gratitude I’ve ever felt for how our paths brought me so much to love and appreciate, including all of the “issues” I realized at that moment were gifts in their own manner too.
Everything that has happened in my life is over and done. And it’s all subjective. It’s all thought—MY thought, as it’s only MY experience to have had. No one else’s experiences could possibly be the same, even of the same shared encounter. We are independent instances of energy sharing a moment in nature from our unique vantage points, our own cumulative experience, and numerous other external influences fueling our thoughts.
Everything that’s come before was a path to now. If you had not followed it, you’d not be who you are or where you are. You’d be someone else, somewhere else, and to presume you’d be better or worse off in any scenario other than the one you are living in this moment is an act of irrational thought, if not insanity.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man.” - Heraclitus
The culmination of this entire journey into my thoughts brought me to a moment of intense awareness that my actions, for and even against myself, brought me to this moment. As did all of the actions of others, also in that same dance of nature, with and without me at times. It all brought me to this moment. This moment of complete presence and connection to everything is nature, devoid of thoughts and stories. It just “IS.”
An overwhelming recognition swept over and swelled throughout me. I saw all of the physical past in the physical present. Of everything surrounding me, nothing wasn’t there before in some other form, from the dirt, soil, green grass, and trees to all the physical remains of anything that’s ever lived and died, as we know life, for all known time.
I began to reconsider my perceptions of my impermanence and inevitable demise. I, too, will be gone ‘in time’, like every other entity that has ever lived, died, and decayed. Yet, I am the manifestation of decades of exposure to other’s energy and spirit, directly and indirectly, all of whom were influenced by those that came before them, whose energy went into them, on its way to me and into this active moment of awareness, devoid of thought.
I understood very deeply that ‘death’ is simply a transition of form and energy, as has been everything leading up to my physical birth and every moment since. I’m not the same physical person as I was then. I’m far from the same aspect of energy and awareness, either. I have retained memories of many experiences yet have forgotten as many, if not more. I have learned, released, adopted and abandoned ideas, perspectives and assumptions. My energy, my humble slice of conscious awareness, before thoughts attempt to label, define and constrain it, has never stopped changing. When my physical form reaches a transition point, so will my energy. It’ll continue, just like the atoms that make up our physical bodies break down and recycle into the ecosystem.
This experience felt like reaching a point of consciousness and awareness in a single afternoon that might have taken ten to twenty years of meditation even to begin to reach.
This all boils down to being authentically aware of nature, consciousness, being genuine, present and aware of all the energy around us. What we see and what we don’t. Like radio waves and ultraviolet light, it’s all there. It’s all here. It’s everything there is and everything we make of it.