Meditation on Choice as Creation

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant (pt. I)

Spring in February! The winter daphne and primroses are in bloom. The bulbs are coming up! I've pots and pots of bulbs in front and back, and the ones in the flowerbed outside my bedroom window are blooming, seeing as they get plenty of morning light: crocus, japanese iris, hyacinth, tulips, primroses. Just outside my door the hyacinths are beginning to bloom, and their bold flowery scent is like a shaft of sunlight touching my soul.

The air, ah, how to describe the air? It is cool and heavy with mist that collected on my eyelashes as I walked along the river at 7 o'clock this morning. It smells of green and growing things, of leaf mold and humus and sweetness. As I walked through the forest I could hear the birds twittering, making their mating and territory calls: "Pick me, baby!"and "This is my tree, find your own!" I strolled over to the community garden. Some people were already there working the soil, preparing it for the next round of flowers, fruits, vegetables, and herbs, tending the bulbs coming up. My toes got wet and chilled in my Tevas, but I did not mind. It sure beats cold and sweaty in snow boots.

There is a shelter overlooking the river. It is a concrete pad with a roof, open on all four sides, with a picnic table in the center. I sat cross-legged on the table, pulled my jacket tighter about me, and focussed my awareness on my breath and body. My nose was cold. My ass was chilled from the table top. My nipples were hard. My Tevas were cutting into my thighs, just above my knees. The breeze was moving a lock of hair on my forehead, tickling the skin. My breath was rhythmic, lulling. I could feel my shirt brushing against my sternum as I breathed. Slower, deeper inhalation. I could feel the breath touching the cradle of my hips, stirring the source of sexual energy. Memory-echo of last night's expansive orgasm. Exhaling it.

The discomforts faded as my awareness shifted. I cast it outward, let myself become a sensory net, let the environmental sensations fill me, center me in a state of mindfulness. Here I am. I know my place in the world. I fill it, and it fills me. I am alone and yet not. I am one with everything I sense. And then the pure awareness, unthinking consciousness, just being. Suspended for a long moment of samadhi bliss. For how long, I do not know. A minute? Twenty minutes? Forever? I cannot express that timelessness in words.

I eased from that state and focussed my mind on the affirmation I had chosen for myself:

My experiences are the consequences of my choices.
Choosing is an act of Creation.
The most important choices I make involve how I see myself, Reality, and my relationship to Reality.
As a conscious act of Creation, I choose to see my life as meaningful and my self as a compassionate, powerful, sensual, and creative spirit.
Let the consequences continue!

As I walked back home, I repeated these phrases to myself, reminding myself of my own powers of creation and my responsibility for the consequences to myself and others. It is an amazing thing, that sense of awareness and empowerment, and the desire to share it with the world. If only everyone could feel this way. I am grateful that the gentle glow of it will remain with me for much of the day.