By Abigail King
THIS IS HOW IT BEGAN: mornings, sitting outside on a stone bench, listening to the mockingbird. You exist. I exist. We are each here in this moment, and this moment, and this moment and
Then came the wind at night. Alone, unclothed, stretched long atop the big family table on the back patio, face towards the sky. The wind bathed me, and I received its bath.
Then it didn’t bathe me anymore, and I no longer received, because I was the wind. It could no longer act upon me, as we were now the same entity. We blew through the tree branches overhead until we didn’t anymore because we had become the tree branches, the leaves the trunks the roots
and the soil and the foundations of houses interrupting the paths of mycelium networks and those networks themselves and the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen and hydrogen and carbon, so much carbon, and even the stars above so far away were not far because they were I and I them and all was one and all is one and all is one.
About the Author
Abigail King writes, walks, cooks, thinks, reads, raises teenagers and teaches outdoor yoga in Austin, Texas. She’s working on a manuscript of poems and essays, but for now you can find more writing and links to other published work on her two blogs, My Macho Bullshit and The Noticings.
Terrific. Thanks.
Vanessa, thank you for publishing this. In writing it, I reflected back several years to a time when I had these spontaneous repeated almost psychedelic (yet completely sober) experiences of merging with nature and beyond, of radical oneness with everything. Curiously, this was also the beginning of the end of my marriage. As if somehow breaking the boundaries between myself and the universe also dissolved the bonds of codependence. A mystery! And a state I have only residual connection with, yet to which I believe it possible to return. Namaste.
It’s always a treat to read words that you can feel. I felt this. So thank you.
That’s beautiful feedback– thank you Clint.