How To Feel Vast And Connected To Everything

There are places on earth and moments in time when you know you’re part of everything. You feel life as it is now, as it was, as it will always be. You’re connected to everything, and everyone. The good and the bad. You’re both small and vast, and think of everybody and see them being both small and vast, too. Some of the places that let you feel this are known for their magic; they’re sacred and universally acknowledged as so. So how to feel vast and connected to everything?

Visit the beach, the air full of salt and potential, and stare at water that doesn’t end until it hits another shore. Maybe, another continent. Hold your arms out. Jump and feel free. Think about where the water between your toes today ends up in a month. In a century.

Dance On Top Of The World.

Dance on the top of the world, where the air is thin, and big horned sheep graze next to glacier lakes so beautiful and perfect that you feel beautiful and perfect, too, if only for a moment.

Be in the mountains, where city light is hundreds of miles away, with stars so much more breathtaking and plentiful than any you’ve seen before. The sky then isn’t just up there, it’s all around you, and you feel the stardust inside of yourself. Inside of each of us. You’re vast, and connected to everything. Stare into the past and the future. The now.

There are places on earth man still knows nothing about, and you hope it’ll always be that way. While you appreciate technology, it feels right that there are depths and heights where humans can’t survive. You like that humans don’t know all that lives at the bottom of the sea, or all that lives past the Milky Way. 

It’s vast, this universe we live in, although it doesn’t always feel that way as we fold laundry, worry over the not-green-enough grass in the yard. As we worry about ourselves, and tell ourselves to get over ourselves already, while knowing it’s not really that easy. 

Every once in a while though, it’s possible to feel vast and connected to everything, even in a backyard. Close your eyes, and think about the neighbors, and push your brain to think about their neighbors, and then theirs, and within seconds, you picture a mom in a third world country, wondering what she’ll feed her children tonight. You see her while you see your baby’s feet in the grass.

Strive To See Everybody.

Strive to see everybody. To really, truly see them. In that, somehow, some way, we see ourselves, too.

You know you’re no better, and no worse than she is, and you’ll recognize that privilege is a privilege – that it’s not deserved, or earned. It just is. You’ll feel guilty about that, and then enraged, but then, you’ll do something meaningful to reinforce that connection. Maybe it’s donating money, or time. Maybe it’s calling your state representatives to become another good voice in all of the noise. You remind yourself that doing something is doing something, and that if each of us DO something, we become the helpers.

There are places on earth and moments in time when you know you’re part of everything. Each of us are both vast and small. We’re here for a blink, and a lifetime. You want to make it count, even when that feels impossible.

Let’s make it count together, ok?

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post, with the photo prompt (above) “Vast,” provided by the talented and lovely Mardra Sikora.