Oct 5/11 Simpson Desert Australia, 5:30am
Reflections on Knowing, Mind and Wonderment
With thanks to Sue and John for taking us there.
by Tarchin Hearn

I’m sitting on the red earth
gazing into mystery,
camp mat folded under me,
morning coffee steaming by my side.

In front is a young acacia bush.
Its roots are responding to moisture, sand chemistries,
and the lives of subterranean microorganisms.
Each one of these particular biochemical respondings;
a dancing of communion.
Plant collaborating with living earth.
Earth collaborating with plant.
— We could call them forms or ways of knowing.

The sun appears over an immense, flat, desert plain and molecules of chill air are responding to increasing streams of photons. Wind is beginning to stir. Temperatures rise and photosynthesis in grey green leathery leaves strengthens in rhythm and tempo. This changing activity demonstrates yet more forms of knowing. Intelligent respondings. Patterns of orderly connection and interminglement.

The low light illumines tight-ropes of spider web, tugging at leaves and shaping their movement, flexing and shimmering in the sea of light and breeze. A spider hunkers down under a leaf to wait out another period of heat. All these movements and respondings are themselves embodiments of knowing, an interflowing of living experience.

Rainbow bee-eater flashes in from the left and lands on the acacia branch, feathers reflecting sunlight to my eyes; cascades of neural conversations inviting the vastness of my being to see iridescent colour and think; “Good morning, beauty!” Me responding to bee-eater and bee-eater responding to me, and to acacia which is responding to sun and spider. Each moment of responding is a demonstration of knowing. Knowings within knowings shaping knowing; — an ocean of wondrous collaboration

Each being and becoming — a dancing of knowing,
a unique expression,
an immeasurable weaving of unfolding life streams.
This total field of all events and meanings.
This eternal immediacy of local ordinariness,
together considering the question, how should I live?
How do we live?

But wait! You too, dear reader, are also involved.
Widening the doors of empathy,
with exquisite sensitivity,
look around you and feel:
these writings,
the room,
the garden and sky,
the fly exploring the rim of your cup,
the sounds of people, friends and family, all around,
my words dancing patterns in your seeing embrace.
Open into this.
Breathing and appreciating.
A here and now translucent presence.
A seeing and being seen.

This interweaving is what and where you are.
It makes you.
It is you,
and me,
and the crickets,
and the sound of the traffic and the whirr of bee-eater’s wings. We are in it together: molecules, cells, creatures and landscapes. We need each other to function. We mind ourselves and each other into being. The dancing of everyone and everything brings forth a field of knowing, this mind and minding, an ever changing world of everyday mystery — this wonderment that we share.

©Tarchin Hearn Nov/2011