All Signs Point to Oneness

The universe, always heavy-handed*

I have been out of sorts a bit, still muscling through this transition.

But Kia, you say**, aren’t you always in some sort of transition? When does the dance end?

My brain can turn this over a thousand times, estimating and calculating, vaulting, willing myself to a perfect landing, legs pinned together, arms over head. Perfect.

Alas, as much as my brain might will it, it is the the body that does the work. I can think a thousand scenarios, but my body can only be in this moment, as it is, tucked between pillows and cushions, listening to Donny Hathaway remind me about taking a love song and singing it everywhere.

Luckily, as my hamster wheel of a brain re-rehearses “possible bad things that can happen in the future” and also “that horrible thing you did once that you still can’t account for” the universe has been waving large flags, signally the exits.

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A week ago, I was buying marijuana from the guy I always buy from, making casual, “what are you doing today” chatter. Turns out we both wanted to visit a waterfall, and so he invited me on what, for my inner child, felt like a “secret boy’s excursion:” him and another dude leading me up a footpath into the jungle, crossing a wooden plank, climbing over barbed wire, and down between the roots of an old tree. I kept mumbling “fred penner’s place,” unsure anyone would get the reference.

“Welcome to the sanctuary,” he said, and I could tell it was holy to him. I imagined how it might have been thousands of years ago, recognizing that the small valley we had just climbed into was once a riverbed, the soft red clay rocks crumbling under my toes. We sat there, taking turns under the trickle and rubbing the red dirt on our faces.

“You guys ever had an alien encounter?” I asked, fishing for stories.***

The other dude mentions me this channeled text, Ra Materials, The Law of One. The tldr; as far as I can tell, is that we are all one, all is one, there is no duality.

This idea of oneness would follow me around all week, popping up as a theme at a kundalini activation I went to, where experiences of non-duality, or oneness, are reportedly felt. I laid on the wooden floor of the shala and fell asleep, the sounds of trucks and dirt bikes roaring down one of the dustiest streets in my neighborhood.

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When I know my brain is just running rampant on the wheel, I try to trust the flow of my body. This weekend, I found myself again, at another waterfall, this one smaller than I had remembered. It hasn’t rained in a while.

I sat under the splashing water, my breath catching in my chest.

Later, at home, my mood still sour, brain masturbating itself raw, I practiced the trick of exiting my mind, via the body:

On my roller skates circling the wooden floor between the couch and coffee table

singing along to the music quaking out of my little JBL speaker

harmonizing when I could find the pitch

enjoying the vibration radiating out from my neck

feeling loosed from the tyranny of my thinking mind

reminded of the brilliance of my body, my being.

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My research into aliens is a click-hole that always ends up at the sacred, my destination of choice. Tell me again about how we’re all one, some big beautiful universe wrapped in itself?

The day ends with a verse from the holy book of wikipedia, the story of a well-respected theoretical physicist, who fell into conversation with a philosopher, both deeply interested in the role of thought in society. Their conversations concluded that thought is the tool that we use to solve all problems, but thought also causes problems, leading to an ironic situation: “it is as if one gets sick by going to the doctor.”

Thought is a system, a network of concepts, and “If there is a fault in the functioning of thought, therefore, it must be a systemic fault, which infects the entire network.” This means that thought isn’t going to save us. It can identify a problem, but tends to perpetuate it.

So what is the way out? THE BODY, these two thinkers conclude. A level of proprioception, or an awareness of the body, how it moves, that it is moving at all.

A frequent trick for getting out of my head is to ask myself: can I feel the crevice of my big toe? Stay with it for a while, and all your thoughts could evaporate just a tiny bit, a little bit of the stench lifting.

*thank you for your heavy-handedness, I am stubborn and the veils are thick.

**(me, I say this)

*** I am really looking for alien stories! If you have an encounter that you have made positive meaning of, please hit me up. Key word: POSITIVE, UPLIFTING MEANING. Or it can be complicated. But i’m not here for scary shit, my b. That’s just not my ministry, I’m trying to co-create an enjoyable reality.