By Bernie Bell

This is an analogy, not to be taken literally, obviously.

Let’s take it that LIFE is an ocean.  By LIFE, I mean everything, not just humans, or animals or plants etc, every thing.  All things vibrate, life is vibration, all things have life.  And I don’t just mean this planet or solar system, I mean everywhere, everything. LIFE. I also equate LIFE with LIGHT, LOVE, GOD, REIKI, KRISHNA, etc.  whatever any one wants to call IT.  I call it LIFE.

So, LIFE is an ocean.  A ‘hand’ dips into that ocean, and takes a handful of water.  That water is still ocean, it has all the properties of ocean, and, in fact, would like to return to ocean.

Eventually, the ‘hand’ tips the water back into ocean, where it is re-absorbed.  But now, it has some elements of the ‘hand’, some salts from the sweat, some skin., some element of the ‘hand’.

This water may then be completely re-absorbed in ocean, or may be in ocean for some time, until another ‘hand’ dips in and takes a handful of water.  That water has some of ocean, maybe some of the last ‘hand’, and now some of this ‘hand’, and so on, and so on.

For ‘hand’, read any living presence, maybe a  body, maybe a being of another kind, maybe a stone, as stones ‘live’ too.

What I’m saying is, that how I see it is, that it’s all one thing, we’re all one energy and one physicality.

All things are different manifestations or expressions of this one LIFE, even ‘dead’ matter, still has a life of its own.

We can be more aware of this, and feel more connected to all, in some places more than others.  We can do so any where, but at some places, we can feel ourselves as part of ‘ocean’ more than at others.  Those places can be any where; your living-room, a stone circle or cairn, or the Taj Mahal.  It’s all one thing and we move and have our being in it and as part of it.

Newgrange through the trees (B Bell)

That’s how I see it anyway.

 Here are two poems which try to express this:-

 All things have life

A building is seen as in-animate

Stone and wood

Yet stone has music in it

and wood still lives

Though cut.

Then we live in it

and breathe our life into it too.

I don’t see a building as in-animate

Do you?

 Ghosts

Ghosts!

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Just because we’re not in bodies,

Doesn’t mean we’re DEAD you know;

We’re still part of LIFE.

You’re the shadow,

We’re the substance.

Spirit isn’t in the body,

The body moves in spirit.

Ghosts, indeed!

Ring of Brodgar, Orkney (F Grahame)