In My Ark

I sit in my ark, high above the daily dirt and noise and tumble of my life down there. When I enter my ark I am rising above all that for a time. I climb the two-tiered set of steps and enter a quiet open lofty space lifted above the things I do.

As I sit in my ark I am greeted by a panoramic view of the Big River, flowingflowingflowing 20 feet down and in front of where I sit. To the extent of my willingness to be baptized, I am plunged into the unceasing onwardness of the movement of the water.

As I sit in awareness of the river, my thoughts, cares, worries, joys, judgements, pleasures, needs, desires, hungers and whatever else I may think or feel I am in that moment become as my bread that I am casting unto those waters. Like the chunks of old muffins and stale crusts we have all tossed to waterbirds and fish, my whoithinkiamness is swept away from this spot.

As I sit and bring recognition into play it comes to me that I have more choice about the nature of the bread I cast. First goes the surface stuff, the human baggage I believe I am. Sometimes it goes with gratitude, sometimes with reluctance. Then as I sit I may become aware of deeper, larger, more spacious areas of my self. These are cast into the never pausing flow and I move with them into the power of the movement of the water. I enter the water as it passes my tiny ark and flows south around the bend at our neighbor’s house.

As I bob and sway in the water, we head to the dam where we plunge screaming with life and joy over the falls, hurling sprays of droplets into the hot air and blue sky just for the thrill of it. Onward to Las Cruces and then swiftly past Mesilla, south valley, El Paso, and unchallenged passportless into Mexico. Storming through the whole country, we smell the ocean where we spread wide and expand the powerful flow bleeding into the vast depths of ocean water. As my bread is broken into bits smaller than molecules, it is no less my bread for being dispersed in all this liquid life.

The ocean, enfolding my cast bread, then proceeds to evaporate and go up into clouds. Clouds move by the winds and air temperatures northward across the land into the heart of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. Rain! Snow! I fall to the ground, kneading my deconstructed bread into a viable yeast, hungry to feed on the air of life and flow and process and earth and movement and change. In the spring the snow melts, forming mini-rivulets high in the rocks and crevasses. These rivulets must follow their destiny ever downward, forward, joining other rivulets until they become creeks and small rivers and the Big River. Big River flows south to New Mexico and past my spot where I sit on my ark.

Thus I am right now making my world.

These are the living waters. Whatever I cast into them seems alive as it dissolves and merges with the flow of life. How much awareness of this flow can I take with me when I climb the two-tiered steps back down to the earth of my life. How often can I be aware of the mini irrigation ditch of the very same flow that waters the garden of my body and my mind and my relationship and my deeds and my responses. I can always touch home by noting the flow of my breath, my blood, the shaman drum beat of my pulse.

All can enter and cast from any point in the circuit. My personal point is where I live—my ark—my present moment state of consciousness.

-- Laura Solberg