To Be...Or Inter-Be: That Is The Question

To Be Or Inter-Be...

That Is The Question

Who are you? Who is Michelle? Adam? Michael? Laura?

What comes to mind?

Are you an accountant? A nurse?

A brother? A friend?

Are you a runner? An activist? An atheist? An artist?

Who are you?

Are you this body?

Or are you this mind?

Who are you? Are you sure of it?

I slept and I had a dream. I was the only person on the whole planet. It was just earth and I. The land was vibrant green, and the water aqua blue, there were trees and fish, free animals and vibrant sunlight. There were no buildings, no pollution, no factories, no roads. There were no others.

Everyday I would wake up early with the sun. And I would sit comfortably with my legs crossed and do nothing but breathe in the air Earth would feed me. When I would begin to feel the vibrations of the sunlight energy in my soul, I would then stretch and start my day.

It was just me and the earth.

For a moment, I was a bird and I looked down on myself, alone in the world. My footprints were but one matching pair. For a moment, I looked down on myself; so alone.

But then I looked down and the earth held my footprints and I knew she was there with me.

Later on in the dream I ran into another human being. At first I was nervous. At first I was unsure. At first, I hesitated. I almost turned away.

When I saw her digging in the ground with her shovel, I cringed and I put my hands on the earth and I said “but you are mind. And she is hurting you.”

But the next day I saw a flower where the girl had dug her hole and we began to talk and I was not afraid anymore. She, too, loved earth and I knelt beside her and dirtied my hands.

 Many days we then spent together. And if there was ever a time I needed to share something, I looked for her footprints and I found her and together we walked on earth, sharing and laughing.

And then I said to her “I hope you never go. For without your footprints, I would be lost.”

But as the years passed, more humans beings came to planet earth. They spread across the countryside. They settled on different landforms. They planted bigger plants. And then homes. And then buildings. And then walls.

And I didn’t need my friend so much because of beings there were many and, anyways, I couldn’t find her footprints anymore.

At the end of the dream I found myself alone. I felt troubled by something in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I missed my friend. And so I knelt on planet earth, my eldest and truest friend, and she said to me, “Thee who carries in them, a bit of my light, in this time of trouble, ask yourself who you are.”

And now I am awake from my dream and I am sitting on a flattened pillow on the balcony of my hostel, writing this blog and I ask you all to be with me.

I would not be where I am today without each and every one of you.

I hope it would not take the world coming down to just 2 people, for us to realize and appreciate that we live in one another. We feed off each other’s energy. We share our eyes with our mother, who received them from our grandparents, and their faces would be what without those of our great grand-parents?

We carry another man’s labor on the shirts we wear on our backs. We wear a smile that we borrowed from a dog rolling around the floor on his back. We live in a body that is nourished by the fruits of our land.

So, who are you?

To be… Or inter-be. A bit of me lives in you, and you within me.