WE ARE ALL ONE

    We are all connected. I know this because in the truest sense of our being we are nothing more than energy that has formed to manifest our bodies, our thoughts, our emotions, our whole being. Some of the energy inside me once belonged to my mother and father, to my family, to my neighbors and to my friends. And all of it comes straight from the Universal Source. For as I change in each moment---which is inevitable---I exchange energy with everything in the Universe. So the air I breathe right at this moment is moving through the atmosphere of earth and is being drawn into the roots of plants that expel it from the leaves back into the atmosphere, to become air for someone else to breathe in another place and another time. Or it may form into clouds and convert to rain which waters the flowers and breaks down the stone.

    I have known the concept of connectedness for a long time intellectually. And I have known it sensually just because it occurs constantly. But on Saturday, for the very first time I can remember, I experienced connectedness intellectually, sensually and spiritually in the same moment. It was a great AHA for me. It occurred after I read an update from one of my friends on Facebook about their perfect Saturday morning, sitting at their kitchen table, looking out to the beautiful morning and listening to their grandchildren. I felt a pang of loneliness, for I live alone and have no children and my thought was that I will never have that exact experience. The sadness stayed with me for awhile. Then I read a passage in the book, no death, no fear, by Thich Nhat Hanh. To be honest I can't even remember what actual words allowed me the AHA. The important thing is that after reading this passage I actually thought about my loneliness and realized that if we are all connected then I can feel the experience of my Facebook friend through his words. It is his words that connect us. It is from connecting his words with my own experiences of having looked out the window at beauty from my own kitchen table, and my having experienced the joy of other people's children in my life, that I can allow myself to connect to this person who is over a thousand miles away and to be in his experience with him. So I allowed myself this experience and remembered that when my breath arrives in his hometown, at some point it will become the breath that sustains him and his grandchildren. I connected to them all, right in that moment.

    So over the next few days I will remind myself of how I am connected to all that is around me. And I will remember that the items I have purchased in my home and the food I eat, connect me to the people who grew the seeds and plants, who harvested them, who produced them, who transported them and who sold them to me. For at some point in my existence I am connected to every atom and molecule on this planet and beyond. For I am one piece of the Universe interacting with all other pieces. It is truly magnificent! For in the truest sense of being, we are all one.