Zelda's Inferno exercise: from what was intended to be a guided group meditation. I went off in a different direction though, since "out of body" meditation is 180 degrees away from the work I'm doing: instead, started with here-and-now:
three pillar candles burn in the center of the table
flames dance in the breeze of the here-and-now
breeze
from the ceiling fans
from the A/C unit in the window
from the breath of the people around the table
from the small echos of far distant hurricanes
the breeze that permeates the world
trance words are spoken but I watch the flames
they dance both together and apart
the same breeze moves them
but
they each dance differently
and each blows its own small breeze to the others
and to the people who sit around the table
does anyone see? does anyone feel that breeze?
once against I am befuddled by things sensible people take for granted
best not to begin
but once begun, best to finish
everything touches everything else and penetrates, soaks into, it
the candles are signal fires
glowing marker buoys on the sea
I think of the parrots on Huxley's Island of Pala, crying out "Here and now, boys, here and now"
the flame is always now, and now, and now
showing the way to the moment
in every cell of my body burns a flame
in each of the trillion trillion mitochondria, the Krebs cycle, glucose and oxygen, slow burn
I am just a trillion trillion candle flames
but each flame is the whole of the atmosphere meeting the whole of the earth
I am a kosmos
A trillion trillion miles across -
there is no where to go that is not me