I used to think I was separate.
A lone solo note.
I used to think I was a line on a page,
And not the page itself.
But the longer I listened,
The more the static cleared,
The more I realised we are all part of the same song.
Every heartbeat a drum hit,
Every breath another verse in a melody that started long before we learned to name it.
See the universe never drew borders,
It danced itself into shapes,
Gave itself names so it could see itself better.
The universe called itself me,
And you,
So it could fall in love with its own reflection.
Alan Watts once said,
You are something the universe is doing,
Like a wave is something the ocean is doing.
And that line stuck,
Because once you feel that,
The whole illusion begins to crack.
You look at a stranger and see your own eyes staring back,
You realise the anger you hold is the same fire that fuels creation,
And the love you give is the same pulse that spins the galaxies.
But still,
We forget.
We scroll,
We scroll,
We scroll,
We scroll,
We scroll,
We scroll and we drown in our reflections until we can't hear that song anymore.
And yet,
Even through the static of the adverts and the arguments,
The hum remains.
That one note beneath everything,
You still hear it.
You hear it when you walk home late and the street lamps flicker like old stars,
You hear it in the little dog barking three gardens away,
And the kettle when it starts to boil water for your tea,
A reminder that heat,
Sound,
Time and space are all one continuous sigh.
Every face you pass is another version of the same consciousness trying to remember itself,
Trying to wake up from the dream that says I and ends where you begin.
But there is no I,
There is no you,
Only we,
Only this,
Only now.
We are raindrops learning that we are the ocean,
We are sparks realising we are all the fire.
We are words that forgot they are not part of the same poem.
Every border drawn is but a child's light in the sand,
Washed clean by the next tide of breath.
And the tide keeps coming,
It always comes back because love,
Real love,
Is gravity for the soul because it pulls us home even when we pretend we're drifting.
So when I say we're one,
I don't mean some hazy hippy thing.
But maybe I do mean some hazy hippy thing.
I also mean physics,
I mean science,
I mean the air living in your lungs right now,
Into mine tomorrow.
That trees breathe out,
What we breathe in.
The stars died so we could speak their ashes into poems.
I mean connection isn't an idea.
Connection is the meaning of existence,
Existence is the meaning of connection.
So when we fight,
We're just thunder punching thunder.
But when we love,
We are water quenching its own flame.
And when we forgive,
We are the universe remembering its own reflection.
Forgive.
Maybe that's why meditation works.
A quiet remembering,
Each inhale saying I belong,
Each exhale saying I release.
Until the walls soften and everything breathes as one.
Because beneath the politics,
The pixels,
The fear,
The faith,
We are one single living field of awareness.
We are one single field of awareness looking at itself from a billion points of view.
We are the breath that the earth takes.
We are the atoms of our ancestors still whispering through us.
Every kindness you show ripples infinitely on into galaxies that you'll never see.
So the next time when you feel a bit insignificant or a bit small,
Just remember,
Even stars were once dust.
And dust remembered how to shine.
And now the stars are in you and shine for you because you are the stars and the stars are you.
We're not here to try and find connection because we are connection.
We are connection learning to remember itself.
All of us are the same song just sung through different throats.
