Elemental Union

These days human beings have forgotten what religion is. They have forgotten a peculiar love which united their human nature to Great Nature. This love has nothing to do with human love. Standing in the midst of nature you feel this love of Great Nature . . . . Zen students must experience this peculiar love. This is religion. Sokei-An in the Zen Calendar (November 11, 2007).

Day 207. This EZ Rider rides again! I rode with my team for the first Saturday in almost three months. It was sixty-eight mild, delectable degrees when we rolled out of the parking lot. There were only six of us, since the bulk of the team is hammering out the epoch Hotter Than Hell One Hundred ride at Wichita Falls. I felt resoundingly content to finish a Smokin' and Screamin' Sixty mile ride with my club. In the interest of ego reduction, details of the ride will be omitted. Suffice it to say that Fast Mike grinned at me as we stood in a circle for the customary congratulatory phase of the ride and said, "You're riding like you haven't lost a bit." I grinned back. In that instant, the hundreds of miles I pounded out alone this summer were totally worth it.

Friday was a momentous day; I am dedicating two blogs to it. As if a lake frolic with my two favorite dogs wasn't sublime enough, I also had a spontaneous encounter with a friend I've known since elementary school. As only a gracious, abundant universe would have it, we were reunited through a mutual friend, Tim, whom I just met this summer through Lorene, the friend with whom I was reunited in April (that was a rather convoluted sentence, but entirely accurate. Try to keep up!) Less than an hour in to our first meeting, Tim said I reminded him of someone who went to my high school. Naturally, I asked, "Who?" When he said Lynn's name, I burst out laughing, exclaiming, "I've known her since second or third grade!" She lived five blocks from me. We were good friends. Lynn and I (comrades in OCD) memorized our multiplication tables through the twelve's, when every other third grader was content to accomplish their ten's. She also taught me to spell: a-n-e-s-t-h-e-s-i-o-l-o-g-i-s-t, which I can spell to this day (seriously - I did not look that up!). This was relevant knowledge to Lynn, since it was her dad's profession. My dad's job was much less glamorous. I never taught anyone to spell F-i-r-e I-n-s-u-r-a-n-c-e I-n-s-p-e-c-t-o-r.

So the message from Tim early Friday night said, "Julie, I want to see if you recognize this laugh . . . . " and Viola! I heard the lyrical guffaw of my good friend Lynn. She and Tim were finishing dinner at a friend of Lynn's. With utter disregard of social etiquette, I impulsively invited myself over. Radiating social genteelness, Lynn promptly provided directions. Half an hour later, I joined them on the front porch of Patty's lovely home in one of my favorite historical areas of central Oklahoma City. Soft light from the spheres of paper lanterns randomly strung from the porch roof rained down on us. The night air was summer soft rather than the suffocating stickiness of the past several weeks. Lynn poured wine. Conversation flowed.

The content of catching up didn't take long. When four intelligent, lively, well-traveled minds gather at the same table to mingle and meander, content succumbs to process fairly quickly. There was such implicit understanding, volumes could be communicated in a few sentences. Somewhere in the lightening fast succession of associations from mine and Patty's sons being football players to Lynn and Tim's meeting in Athens to Lynn and me completing a semester of college while we were still in high school (our OCD proclivities were truly a match!) we landed on the topic of higher consciousness, the importance of evolving, and the differences between religion and spirituality. Mind you, we hadn't yet opened the second bottle of wine. Talk about overachievers!

It was at this juncture that the topic of birthdays and astrological signs emerged. Lynn is a Taurus, Tim a Leo, Patty a Cancer, and I am the quintessential Aquarian. Peak Experience! In a nanosecond, I registered that we each represented one of the primary elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air, respectively. No wonder the evening felt magically symmetrical, balanced, and synergistic! When exactly four people are gathered together, it is a rare phenomena indeed for each of the four elements to be singularly present. The real Peak Experience occurred when I blurted out my observation, and my three friends immediately understood - and were similarly excited and appreciative. High fives all around! (As of Tim's birthday this month, we are all 49 and therefore too old to remember that the current hip gesture of connectedness is the knuckle bump!)

Mysteriously, I know that the four of us have NOT forgotten the peculiar love that unites our human nature to Great Nature. Basking in the midst of the elemental union of Earth, Fire, Water and Air, we lived the love of Great Nature. We would probably agree that this is a religion we can stomach. I will remember this evening in my being for that most cherished of feelings: Belonging. A sense of connection having nothing to do with the presence or absence of shared history (I hadn't been in contact with Lynn for over 10 years, met Tim in June, met Patty last night). Not shared history in the traditional sense, at least. We shared something far more precious: loving hearts, open minds, evolving psyches, compassionate souls. Kindred spirits brought together with a spontaneous synergy that only a loving cosmos could orchestrate.

Gassho Tim, Lynn and Patty. It was a marvelous night.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc