The Spaces In Between

Wild lily, Tahoe National Forest, June 2017. (JoAnn Saccato)

I've recently started including the awareness of spaces in between objects as part of the centering exercise I do with clients and students. As we look at objects with a curious attention--seeing them as if for the first time through the eyes of a child--they have a tendency to come alive in a new way. A fresh crispness is experienced when our pure attention is focused.

I'm noticing that clarity to be even more pronounced when I focus on the spaces in between objects. Their three dimensional nature becomes more apparent, but something else quite fascinating happens, too.

There is a visceral connection with the object as I become aware of the spaces in between. A deeper realization that I am a part of a bigger something eventually emerges. There's a direct experience of just being an extension of the object--the object and I are one and there is no space in between.

I'm not sure any of this can make sense through the written word...These concepts are so big, that I question even writing about them...

I'm not sure any of this can make sense through the written word, but it seems to come into play with an experience I had that helped me see there is not only no space in between objects, but no time of past, present or future either. These concepts are so big, that I question even writing about them--particularly for a public audience, as they may make no sense at all. It may be one of those things that has to be experienced directly to be fully understood.

Round Lake, Tahoe National Forest, June, 2017. (JoAnn Saccato)

"In truth we are always present; we only imagine ourselves to be in one place or another." ~ Howard Cohn

As I left for my recent backpacking trip into the Tahoe National Forest--my first solo overnight backpacking experience--I stopped at the Cache Creek Management area outside of Clear Lake Oaks in California. This area is close to the cabin Shyla and I lived for ten years, as well as close to where I lived 13 years prior to that. I hadn't been there for a year or more and usually when I  stop, I remember how much time Shyla and I spent there, particularly during the heat of the summers. It was the only cool water spot to be found for miles around. 

This morning, though, I was making a quick stop to eat a boiled egg for breakfast and grab something out of the backpack for the 3+ hour drive. Shyla hasn't been on my mind much recently. I haven't felt a connection with her and feel more of a connection with Greta, as we spent more time at my home on Cobb than Shyla and I. (Greta, by the way, as of this writing, is still available for adoption at the NKLA site in Los Angeles)

Each time I do stop at this once favorite spot, some new change is noticed and I reminisce how much the creek has changed over the 30+ years I've explored its banks. On this particular morning, I chose the quickest and coolest spot to stop--where the sprawling willow trees and roots jut out into the rushing waters creating a deep enough pool to get good and wet. There's even a rope hanging low over the water and on many occasions I would just hold onto it as the icy cold waters from Indian Valley Reservoir swooshed around my body and swaying it back and forth across the rippling waves.

I was distant from this past busily heading toward my future.

We spent countless dry, hot summer afternoons in this one particular spot just watching the rushing waters, butterflies, birds, bees, and squirrels go about their day. We'd meander (much like this blog post is) up the creek in the cool shallower waters grazing for blackberries and wild mint for morning tea. Shyla would traipse along sniffing and scoping things as dogs do.

None of this was on my mind this morning. I was distant from this past busily heading toward my future.

As I scurried down the now wider and easier-to-navigate trail to the creek side, an unexplainable welling of emotion took over and within seconds I was crying uncontrollably. Not just plain everyday tears, but deep, wracking sobs that expanded and contracted my lungs to new capacities--a stretching that felt so good in my body--healing and helping them open even wider.

What was this?!

In the next instance, I felt soooo connected to Shyla--like she was actually there! I could sense her presence in her favorite spot, perched with a view of the creek, her backside tucked into the base of the trees so she was protected from the rear.  This wasn't a memory, this was a fresh experience--it was happening and the connection was strong!

The tears continued to surge forth from deep in my lungs and I just allowed it to unfold without interference.

The only way to know and understand it was to live it as fully as I could.

What was this?

The only way to know and understand it was to live it as fully as I could.

Good God, what a gift this is! And even more so when I actually show up for it with conscious presence!

What does all this have to do with mindfulness and the spaces in between? Deeper hues, vividness and richness develop from practicing mindfulness. It also hones our ability to experience life more fully, to experience life where there are no spaces. This is what is sometimes referred to as the "long now." It's only when our attention wanders from the present that gaps are perceived, giving the impression there is a past, present and future. When those gaps, or lapses of attention, get too big, seeming epiphanies occur.

But really, epiphanies are just a reconnection with the long now; that deeper reconnection with the complexities of life and love coming to the shore of our awareness.  It's always there, just like my relationship with Shyla, though changed now because her form has changed. But form is always changing--even if the changes are so subtle, they are unrecognizable to the naked eye.

Awareness can permeate objects easily enough, but it can also grow so acutely keen as to permeate the perceived spaces in between. It can transcend perceived space and time and connect to all that is arising and passing away--to all that has arisen and passed away. Awareness can connect to the essence of form--that part of form that persists in timeless perpetuity.

Sharpened awareness can perceive the long now and when it does, when it pierces through the veil of form and time, a radical life changing experience overpowers and renders any barriers, any gaps, transparent, flaccid and ineffectual.