12/10/17

cabin fever : singularities

 December morning view, Waynesville, NC

Friday morning, I awoke to 

falling snow

crystalline so pure
so perfect—its mounds exude 
galaxies of hush

This little haiku and cabin fever got me. All I wanted to say was that there are no words (or photos) for this experience of new snow, but I couldn't just SAY that because only the poetic allusion and brevity of haiku could begin to express...   or maybe Mary Oliver gets close in First Snow * —"such an oracular fever"  "—not a single answer has been found—"

So snow level reached 14" by Saturday morning, making it impossible to get to or from this house on Balsalm Mountain. I caught up on business; took 2 or more hours with yoga practice; worked on art projects; started writing (this); laughed about cabin fever (this is day 3); walked in the snow with the cats; got snow in my boots; and took loads of pictures. 

friends taking a snow day

Maybe I have "oracular fever," not cabin fever? Thinking they are the same.

Either way, what I love about these kind of events is that they make a dent in everyday reality—habits, thoughts, patterns, schedules, everything! Forced to stay inside, having transportation restricted to walking in snow shoes, I start to look more closely at what I usually do and what I am able to do right now, and both take on new meaning. 

There is nothing like surprises, radical interruptions (and travel) to jump-start awareness and mental clarity. And sometimes these singularities—the second definition below is particularly fabulous and pertinent—appear/disappear in an instant and take on infinite value. 
1. The state, fact, quality, or condition of being singular. 
2. physics mathematics: a point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially in space-time when matter is infinitely dense, as at the center of a black hole. {to me this means black holes are truly form AND emptiness.*}  
Who knows when a "singularity" in consciousness may occur? Several years ago, after one of my first experiences with Ashtanga yoga (Jason's class), I went to do some shopping at Earth Fare, an ordinary health food store on an ordinary day (though I did feel a little spacey). 

Looking at a shelf of sugar substitutes, suddenly I heard the most amazing sounds. Music so brilliant and exquisite I was awestruck, ecstatic (no adequate words.)

Then something rearranged itself, and I was hearing a very ordinary, familiar tune, the health food store equivalent of Muzak, maybe. How deeply and sweetly I had traveled in such a short time! 

I have experienced more than a few of these singularities, interruptions, or interferences with "normal" consciousness. Some deep, short, scary, euphoric, or wide. I am grateful for them all, from snow induced oracular fever, to transcendent Muzak. 

Are divine and mundane so different? 
Is the answer in the silent galaxies or the mound of snow? 
In the sound of Aum or the advert jingle?

As Mary Oliver said, "—not a single answer has been found—"

*Heart Sutra: 
"Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form." 
"Gate gate paragate parasamgate Bodhisvaha" 
Gone from forgetfulness to mindfulness. Gone from duality into non-duality. Utterly beyond to awakening.


*Thanks, Kathleen H., who posted Mary Oliver's First Snow poem on FaceBook today. Perfect: Oracular Fever!!


Rishikesh friend with keys 




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