Unveil

UNVEIL

“…we live in a physical world, but it is constantly informed by the wind and rain and light of Spirit that we can’t readily see.

“The Native American worldview is constructed to help its citizens remember this…We say the wind is like God’s voice. But the Native American says the wind is God’s voice. We say water is like the earth’s blood. But the Native American says water is the earth’s blood…

“Similarly, we dismiss dreams as things we make up, as fantastic exaggerations of our troubled days… It is said that dreams are the language of God.

“So remove the ‘like,’ remove the ‘as if.’ They might just be X rays of our personal unconscious. Or glimpses of the spirit world. Or the shore where both meet.

“Dreams might be the trail of our unconscious connection to all beings- past, present, and even to those not yet born. 

“When we dismiss them as only noise from our overworked minds, we go deaf to the subtle and sacred wind that is trying to steer us through our days…

“So a continual and deep risk for us, if we are to feel the presence and friendship of all there is, is to humbly lift the veils we drape ourselves in, the veils that insulate us as the self-creators of everything we experience.

“Whether we accept it or not, we are asked to let life, in all its unseeable elements, touch us.

“How? We can begin by removing the buffers of perception that we create. We can remove the ‘like’ of metaphor, letting the wind be God’s voice. We can remove the ‘as if’ that surrounds old feeling, letting that memory be a visitation.

“We can remove the imagined sense of dream, letting us feel our deep connection to other beings…

“We can remove ourselves from the center, letting the indwelling spirit pass through us, time and time again, refreshing and rearranging us, until with D.H. Lawrence, we utter, without shame, ‘Not I, but the wind that blows through me.’

~Mark Nepo from
The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life

Photo: Amanda Harlech by Nick Knight