I saw myself when I shut my eyes:
space, space
where I am and am not.
Octavio Paz
Translated by Muriel Rukeyser
To-and-fro. Again and again, there was a rhythmic sound of coming and going. At first, my early-morning mind thought it was a part of dream, and instantaneously began searching to remember what had been dreamt in the realms of sleep. Yet, as though my mind was trying to mimic the coming and going of the sound, it released the effort to search as quickly as it had rushed toward its idea that the sound was from a dream. That thought came and went, and was replaced by the awareness of a sweet fresh fragrance in the air and a gentle glow of light seeping through the space in the window curtains.
“Aaah, the ocean!” – was the next thought, which then seemingly gave way to a kind of primal invitation back into the eternal rhythms – the daily and seasonal movements through darkness and brightness, ebbing and flowing of the waves of the waters and air, and the continual rising and releasing of sorrows and joys, births and deaths. Instinctively, my body and mind responded to this timeless lullaby, arising, dressing, turning on the tap to feel the running water and cleanse the traces of sleep from my face, brushing my hair and walking barefoot out the door to stand upon the near horizon, called a shore.
Amazingly, my mind seemed humbled by the melodic to-and-fro. Within the soothing expansiveness of the sound and the luminous early-morning horizon beyond, it seemed to have forgotten its favorite habit of asserting its self-importance. Somehow it recognized its belongingness to the grand spaciousness of existence where at once there is constant intersection of receiving and giving, or stillness within the midst of the pulse of everything.
Upon the shore there was the sense of the living infinity. Waves were endlessly unfurling and receding like the leaves on the trees or breath in the body or even the body itself. I felt immersed in the raw prayerfulness of life. Like a balanced pendulum of sacred offering, the most ancient gestures of existence, such as the waves, were selflessly yielding and arising. Even my habitual mind eased into the folds of this eternal prayerful offering in honor of the omniscient, sacred vastness. There, I remained until the voice of friends called me to breakfast. May we all return to the shore again and again.
As always, thank you for joining me in these reflections on the wisdom woven within our nature-kin.
Practice
This practice invites awareness of the subtleties of letting of and inviting expansiveness. Please allow at least fifteen minutes in a quiet setting.
Prepare –
- Begin by removing any potential distractions from your practice space, including removing watches from your wrists and silencing your digital devices.
- Find a comfortable seated position. If on a chair or bench, place the soles of both feet on the earth or floor beneath you. Acknowledge the gifts of the earth for unendingly supporting you and all those beings who have walked or sat on the land where you are.
- Slowly bring your awareness to your body. Invite appreciation of this amazing bodily container that carries you through life. Perhaps lightly stroke your limbs, face and torso saying “thank you. Thank you.”
- Then, quietly acknowledge all the ways your body and senses allow you to connect with the world and other beings by: lightly touching your nose (your breath and sensing fragrances); mouth (for tasting, ingesting, and speaking); eyes (for seeing); ears (for receiving sounds); skin (for touching and receiving touch); hands (for giving and receiving); feet (for moving); lower belly (for digesting); and heart-center (for feeling, loving, and surrendering).
Practice –
For each of the following, invite a sense of patient unfolding, such as allowing time for subtle shifts to happen. Feel free to pause with any of these, closing your eyes and just being with spaciousness that arises with unfolding:
- Gently bring your palms in front of your face. Invite your fingers to softly relax. Notice the space between your fingers. Soften your gaze as though looking through your eyes from deep within. Invite your eyes to soak up and be filled with that spaciousness, allowing them to release inward.
- Slowly rest the backs of your hands on your thighs. With your palms upward, invite a sense of relaxing the weight of your hands onto your thighs. Imagine they could almost melt into that support, allowing them (your hands, arms and fingers) to be completely free of doing.
- Invite a sense of expansiveness entering into the center of your palms and gently spreading through all the cells in your hands and fingers – and, perhaps quietly spreading in your wrists and arms up into your torso. Invite a sense that there is only infinite spaciousness – boundless, everywhere, the holding and being held melting into one another.
- Very, very slowly lift your palms toward your chest, simultaneously carrying expansive spaciousness while feeling that you are moving through an expanse of endless space. Allow your right palm to light rest over the center of your chest (your heart-center), and your left palm on top of your right. Imagine the spaciousness is lovingly pouring into your heart-center and spreading like rays of the sun in all directions from inside out. Again, invite a sense that there is only infinite spaciousness – boundless everywhere. This is the infinite you – always present, always free from inner disturbances.
- Perhaps pause here, with your eyelids softly closed and your breath gently riding the waves of timelessness.
- Slowly reach your palms and forearms outward, perhaps with a sense of prayerful appreciation of the spaciousness that is always there. Then, lightly touch your eyes, cheeks, nose, mouth and ears as though gifting them with remembrance spaciousness, free of judgement and grasping and filled with lovingness and compassion
Transition back into your day –
- Pause. Slowly look around.
- When you are ready, return to your day.
This poem appears in Mala of Love: 108 Luminous Poems, page 124, edited by Ravi Nathwani and Kate Vogt and published by New World Library. H E A R T H is posted each new and full moon. KateVogt©2025.
