“What you seek is seeking you.”  ~Rumi

A stranger who is a friend I’m just now meeting brings me a gift. He reaches in his pocket – reaches his hand out to me – places a piece of the living world in my hand. It is warm from being in his pocket, from the heat of his energy. It fits my hand perfectly as I stare at it and then into it and through it.

An opaque beauty of swirling movement and lines flows into my vision. The warmth of endowed energy moves into me along with the images: first, an eye looks back at me: then, an outline of a bird: then, a volcanic landmass: then, a riverbed that explodes into the Universe twirling. And, finally, in it’s deepest secret revealing, what does this gifted treasure show me? Love.

This love so bright my heart beats deeper and my lips form smiles. Laughter breaks free and moves out my mouth. This love is the same voice of love in my ear all week saying that my favorite Shiva Lingham stone is to be gifted to this person when we meet. I explain this to the stranger who is a friend as he sits down on my couch.  I do not explain that I have spent a week chanting and praising and holding this stone in my hand so it would hold deep the energy of love for him when gifted.  I take the stone from it’s sacred space on my table  and I reach out my hand to his and give him this gift. Love.

The Universe as space and sky unfolds it’s magic and pours it’s love on the ground below. Metaphorically, this love is the ground where strangers become friends in the unlikeliest of ways. It is the ground that grows our greatest human possibilities and capabilities, the ground that fosters the seeds of compassion and giving in such a way that others and the world are made better by this garden. Human vulnerability and honesty are the water feeding thirsty plants so they may unfold, bloom, and burst wide into bright-colored, rich-scented flowers.

This garden crop at harvest is one of peace, generosity, encouragement, and friendship in sublimely spiritual ways. We grow and flower under the tutelage of love. She is our teacher and the deepest vast river and earth of our being.

We are magically superhuman (pure Spirit, even!) when we love ourselves and others with this Divine Love of non-judgement and non-condtioning. But this love requires two deep human offerings for maturation: we must sacrifice falsehood and safety. The irony — that in sharing our true vulnerability with others and maintaining a deep core commitment to honesty with ourselves and with others we move past the confines of self and into the joy of love that is the Divine.

The dichotomies and duality of good and bad, perfect and imperfect, enough and not enough seem to lose their strangulation hold over us; suddenly we breathe a little deeper, there is room for movement and flexibility, the control that once made us feel safe seems a lie and a bad joke somehow. We are beginning to understand the meaning of freedom. And this movement from captivity into freedom begins with a simple question: What are you seeking?

Or, translate the question into it’s deeper variations: What are you looking for? when you look at yourself, others, the Universe, the Divine. Whatever you are seeking is also seeking you? You will see what you expect to see. You will find what you think is there. What do your beliefs tell you? And how many of those beliefs still work for you? Do they bring you fear or pain, or do they take you to a place where love, joy, freedom are the common experience?

Take a slight pause to consider the questions…a minor shift in focus, one small off-step in perceptive point of view … are you seeking a stranger that is a friend? Are you open to finding the Beloved in the faces and animals and the world around you? Is a stone a stone — or can you open your eyes a little wider, look a little deeper — to the life and flow and love that hides within it? If you can pause and consider the questions a new expansion of your being will come. Suddenly, the journey opens wide a path in front of you and what you have been seeking meets you in the garden of life.