it happens once that a river bids me to come & lie on its long water-smoothed swathes of stone beach & touch its fossil runes & time-sculpted stone poetry. the wisdom of the heart informs my fingertips & i am enraptured by the river: its limestone bluffs, meandering expanses of tactile river-refined stones. they tell aeonic-long tales of the survival & ascension of creatures from another geological age than this one. they move me to my deepest heart & core. here at the core i find my sincere root connection to this life, this realm wherein i now find this body. it is embedded in the moment just as the fossil beings are embedded in stone. i am not separate from all that surrounds & supports me. i too am an expression of Shiva here. what a grand dance this truly is: the minerals in these bones & the dust on the moon, all one big cosmic event! i tell this to the river as we lie on the stones in the sun, blessed by the touch of warmth right down to our boulders, pebbles & bones. i share my last dream, in which the river blesses me with a stone imprinted with the stylized shape of an eye. this is the potent dream--my invitation--that brings me here today, down the long rough country road to the hidden winding path toward the swift river. this Shiva-blessed river is kin to the great Ganges springing from snow-melt in the far Himalayan heights half a world away. i tell this to the river as we lie side by side in the sun. once again i feel time & space shift & blend inexplicably, a fresh fossil moment showing its story to be seen & known, not hidden any more. we have no secrets, stripped down to essence, to the wholeness of all existence. the river & i, under the sun & sky: we lie together on the bedrock of it all & Shiva holds us in the fullness of His pure eternal love. He is another sun, hidden behind the one we see, concealed within the mystery of the secret chamber within the heart. the river knows this mystery too & is smiling in the way that rivers can: with a thousand thousand bright shining glints of light. now at my feet i see revealed the sacred stone of my deep dream, emerging to be my talisman & companion wherever Shiva sends us, graced with helpful dreams & miracles as we go. this stone is known as "Shiva's eye," a guardian on my altar. the river is the buffalo, the first national river park, protected from development for all its wooded winding length. Shiva holds us close to Him, me & the buffalo river stone. we dream together of lessons learned & goodness to be revealed, & the river flows clear & i rejoice: OM NAMAH SHIVAYA!
THIS HAPPENED 