This Moment as Manifestation

Last night, I was sitting downstairs in my home at a worktable I’ve set up, working on printing photographic images and also on a book project that has been brewing, and I acutely felt the quality of manifestation. It has a very warm, restful, satisfying feeling to it.

There is something in my personality which makes this somewhat significant, for I have always been the type of person who likes to have things finished, organized, set up before enjoying the fruits of my labors. It’s almost like an addiction to “having all my ducks lined up” before getting into the more fun or meaningful parts of life.

My whole life has been spent in effort toward lining up my ducks. I went through 19 years of education, many years working including 9 1/2 years building my own business with my business partner Gary, 4 years or so designing and building my own home, and countless projects on getting the house and my effects functional and organized. Last night, as I was sitting at that table working on some creative projects, there the ducks were, all lined up, and there I was in that moment, enjoying the manifestation of all of that hard work, this lifetime of hard work.

I had a flash of this feeling a few weeks ago when my friend Diane was visiting. As we were walking back from the beach on a foggy evening, I lifted my head and saw my house there just up ahead, and it was complete, warm and ready to welcome us. I had walked that same path hundreds of times prior to and during construction, and many, many times on that walk, I would imagine what it would be like to have a house there, completed, one which didn’t yet need to be built or completed. A front door to enter into a house which would provide holding and support for growth, healing, family, community and creative pursuits. The feeling was almost as if I had blinked and suddenly there the house was, completed.

My friend Robert came by last night and we spoke about this experience of manifestation I had had earlier in the evening. He helped me to see that there is something in me which is now much more settled and still and ready to simply be here. What he was saying, I think, was that I am ready in a way that I haven’t ever been before, to enjoy myself as manifestation. To truly experience manifestation, I think there has to be a capacity for enjoying and residing in the moment. Without that capacity, there is always another project, another something which requires attention. Last night, I was able to really rest in that feeling.

In fact, though, I think both things are actually true: many of my “ducks” are actually lined up, but it’s also true that there is something in me that is able to reside here without having nearly as powerful a need to accomplish. To be here simply and quietly is more than enough for me right now, and to be here, simply here, is all that is needed to experience manifestation.

My friend Terry was at my house with a group of people a couple of weeks ago and at one point in the evening he walked up to me and gave me something ordinary, an empty tea cup. When he gave it to me he said something which was no less than brilliant. He said, “All my life I’ve been working so hard to get to this place where I can give this to you.” There is obviously nothing special about an able-bodied person handing another person a tea cup, but he was able to see and express how everything in his life had been leading up to just that moment . I thought it was brilliant, because it was an expression of manifestation, of the manifestation that is available within each moment if we are present enough for it. It is true, all of our lives, each moment, each trial, each effort, each joy, each step is spent in getting us just to here, no further. Each moment is a manifestation, to be appreciated, to be enjoyed.

I want to wish a successful surgery and speedy recovery to my step-mother Sandra who just recently fractured her hip falling off her bicycle. As I type this she is in a hospital in Chiang Rai, Thailand having her hip replaced. All will be well Sandra. You’ll be dancing and back on your bike in no time.