It's 9:00am and I'm at the Monroe Correctional Complex track w/coffee listening to Breakfast with the Beatles. Above me, from horizon to horizon, is the color of a robin's egg...you know that amazing blue?!@ The arc of the sky, the firmament - sans clouds - fills me with wonder and excitement. Rays from the sun knead my back muscles while a cool breeze gifts me with the scent of a freshly mowed lawn. Men are playing baseball, running on the crushed rock track, playing chess and some, like me, are sitting at the picknic tables enjoying the moment. When I close my eyes and focus my consciousness on hearing - listening - I could be witnessing a Norman Rockwell moment...a painting in the making. It's truely a bucolic setting. Then the climbing sun reflects a shaft of light off the razor wire and I'm aware ... I'm in prison! How many realities can I be in at one moment?!@# AND YOU???
I've been looking inward trying to find me. Its kinda fun :-) - trying to be aware of being aware. When I attempt to disengage from my feelings - my emotions and the sensory objects of form, the world slows down and ceases to be less of a problem. It's just something I'm watching...like a movie. I haven't actually been able to completely disconnect from the movie 'cuz something always seems to attract my attention yet I SHALL keep trying. I know what it's like to stand at the center of consciousness, to be aware of being aware. In my youth I would frequently flee into the back country of the Cascades or Olympic mountains for a few days of backpacking and solitude. Four or five times I spontainously experienced an awareness of perfect peace....what does that mean to you?? "It" just came over me, uninvited. I don't know if it was nirvana but I bet I was standing right outside the door. For a few moments I tasted eternity. Literally it was just a few seconds. I only got a glimpse of infinity but the peacefulness was so intense that today, 40 years later, I can still feel that awareness. So now I'm trying to replicate that state of awareness here in prison. Stay tuned, I will report my successes...'cause I KNOW THEY WILL BE!!
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AuthorPatrick Michael Leonard Archives
August 2020
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