As I looked again at the photo of the tree in my last post the word gossamer came into my mind and made up a bed. It’s been pacing up and down waiting for sleep to overcome it. It doesn’t seem to want to rest until I do something with it. Thoughts have been swirling around nearly three weeks now.
Standard dictionaries say gossamer is derived from the words goose and summer. I much prefer the definition in Brewer, The Dictionary of Phrase & Fable where the source is thought to be from God’s seam. Legend has it that it is the ravelling of the Virgin Mary’s winding sheet which fell to earth as she ascended into heaven.
That seems somehow apt with the first stop on my walk the other morning being the cemetery. The view is stunning and a deep sense of peace touches the place as though those who are buried there are truly at rest.
As I continued my walk around the Wainui community the universe offered up the perfect gifts.
The word gossamer also evokes memory. Like the thread from Mary’s winding sheet, memory weaves our lives together, creating a picture on the tapestry that will become this lifetime.
The words of Led Zeppelin’s “All of My Love add to this metaphor with the lines “with the glow the weaves a cloak of delight/ there moves a thread that has no end”. And “yours is the cloth, mine is the hand that sows time.” For me the thread that has no end is the thread of divinity that runs through us all and connects us not only to each other but all things. It is the thread of our memory of all that is sacred within and without.
Memories of silk and satin, of babies skin, of cobwebs in the early morning, the first touch of sun on hills, and shining through the plumage of a hawk on the wing, the point where light meets shade.
As I was pondering Gossamer I had a conversation about being kept awake by thoughts and I remembered a passage from Your Sacred Self by Dr Wayne Dyer.
He has this wonderful way of fading out one’s inner dialogue using the imagery of a pond with unlimited depth. He conceives of 5 levels in this pond and imagines a pebble or shell sinking through the water. On the surface is a place of turbulence where everyday life has an immediate effect on our consciousness. The next level is a little beneath the surface slightly removed from the incessant distraction and analysis of your thoughts. Deeper still is the third level where you arrive at the flow of awareness experiencing an acceptance of what is without needing to comprehend it all. As the pebble or shell shifts to the fourth stage the pond is in a state of stillness, totally removed from judgment and entering an experience of joy. At the fifth level he describes being in essence, open to the prospect of infinite possibility in your life. At this level he proposes that “you will have a sensation of knowing God”.
It seems almost paradoxical that if we allow the weight of our thoughts to carry us down to deeper levels of consciousness we experience the gossamerlike touch of Godness.
Blessings
