Maintaining my gateways...

Today was my reminder that the grass is always green on both sides. Yesterday I posted about the beauty of the returning sunlight. Today I awoke to the beauty of wind and rain. When I first stepped outside this morning I was taken aback by the scents carried on the air. The smells of rain, trees, the ocean, but the strongest was that of flowers, which struck me as peculiar since most of the flowers in our neighborhood shriveled as a result of the recent drop in temperature. But if you closed your eyes, you would have thought you were in a rainforest in spring. It was remarkable. I decided to sit outside and read for a while instead of cleaning my house. That's when I noticed the sounds of the birds. I even heard an owl. It was also as I was reading that I noticed the drops of rain clinging to everything around me. A couple drops even hit me right on the forehead as the winds loosed them from their leaves.

It's funny because yesterday I spoke of light as a metaphor for the goodness within. To me, I think that water is a metaphor for the goodness without. When I was young, I loved to just stare at the water. During summers spent at my family's beach house, I would set my internal alarm clock for before anyone else was up and look out as the sun rose above the ocean. This is the time when the dolphins all came out to play. As I've written before, whenever we would cross over the river, I would watch each lap of water until we reached the tip top of the bridge, when I would imagine myself diving off into the cool blue depths to swim with the creatures below. Because of these things, I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist. But now I know that it is simply proof that water is my gateway.

Every person has his own gateway to the Divine. In fact, he has several. We were someplace before we were born and we will return there after we pass, true. But I have found that we still have access to that place in this life. The struggle of the journey is two-fold: determining what your gateways are and, subsequently, keeping them always open. The reason for this is that staying connected to that place is the only way of remaining grounded in this life. If a person becomes encompassed in this world solely- the desires and drives of it, he will lose himself. However, if the connection is maintained, he will navigate this world easily and peaceably.

I have found that some of my gateways are: my love for my husband, art, writing, taking photos, stories (whether in books, movies, or other), music, water, and nature. Now that I have recognized them, I can use them to ensure that I never let this world knock me off my feet, but always remain connected to my one true home.


Our aloe plant, the one plant who is still with us.