The body is a faithful, self-navigating vessel, a Bio-Mechanical Locomotive that requires no instructions from me to manage the heavy lifting of existence. It breathes, it turns, and it carries me through the day while I sit, a quiet passenger, in the observation deck just behind my eyes. From this vintage point, the world is a frantic fish tank of colors and shapes, a blur of scenery sliding past the side windows while I remain perfectly still. My thoughts are the restless tour guides on this journey, leaning against the glass to point out the important, the worrisome, and the mundane, narrating a life that seems to explain itself only once it has already become the past.
Earlier today, standing amidst the towering geometry of Costco, the glass between the observer and the observed simply vanished. I watched a mental fish tank—luminous and liquid—until the perspective inverted, and I found myself floating inside the very water I had been watching. In that strange, recursive intimacy, I saw the back of my own head as if from a distance; I was both the watcher and the fish, a small miracle of suspended awareness. The roar of the warehouse dimmed, the frantic evaluations of prices and promises fell silent, and the world narrowed down to a few essential truths: the pecans, the cereal, and the fish. The volume of the world had been turned down, leaving only the soft, rhythmic hum of being present.
I realized then that I have spent my whole life looking out the side windows, where meaning is made of motion. When I finally dared to look through the great front window—the one that looks toward the future—I found only a startling, peaceful emptiness. There is no map etched onto that glass, no preview of the coming attractions. It is a clear void, not because the view is missing, but because the front window is not meant for looking; it is meant for passing through. Nothing exists in that space until the body moves into it, converting the empty “now” into the vivid “then.” I have stopped leaning forward to catch a glimpse of what’s next. I am no longer the conductor or the narrator; I am simply the passenger, riding through the clear, quiet space where the train becomes the moment and the moment is exactly enough.
Spiritual Gravity 