Don't Tell Me the Universe Isn't Listening
I've got proof that it's paying attention
I was nearing the end of my meditation session, trying to find equanimity as my nose was producing hurricane level sneezes to evacuate copious amounts of spring pollen from my air passages. The urge to vacuum up the yellow dust on the floor that was swirling around my folded legs wouldn’t leave my mind. I was acutely aware of nature’s abundance in the moment—and fully cursing it.
Meditation is presumably about being in the moment, but I was far from the state of acceptance that it’s supposed to promote. I honestly wanted a different moment, perhaps imported from August, when breathing without an allergic wheeze in my chest would be possible again.
I had good reasons to get up and sprint away from my uncomfortable experience, but meditation is the practice of being curious about life as it is. So, I reminded myself that I’d have the rest of the day to apply Claritin and my portable Dyson to the problems at hand and turned my attention back to the mindfulness instructions I’ve been working with for years—watching my breath and experiencing the sensations in my body without judgment. That included my itchy, runny nose.
The Greek philosophers gave us four elements—fire, air, earth, and water—as a way of categorizing the manifestations of our universe. The traditional practice of meditation offers an additional principle, presence, which allows us to observe the interplay of the four elements in our own bodies and experience.
By focusing on present reality rather than my wishes for it to be different, I reduced my mental discomfort and the need to push my experience away. In the next moment, my brain made up a joke. “Why would nature produce so much pollen and dust if it abhors a vacuum?”
The appearance of humor in one’s mind is a good sign that spaciousness is returning and something closer to a balanced perspective is on the way.
The nature of mindfulness is that we lower the walls of our habitual reactions, needs and expectations, and get to see over them to the wishes and designs of a pervasive intelligence. A bigger picture appears. We suddenly have space to move with our perceptions and thoughts rather than confining ourselves to a miserable corner where things aren’t going our way. Without making an effort to think, useful thoughts appear seemingly out of the blue, allowing for that happy and desired state that we call clarity.
It suddenly occurred to me that the majority of my life has included meditation practice. It’s hard to argue with consistent action when it comes to understanding your values and priorities. That insight led me to examine the other activities I’ve invested in over the years.
I immediately thought of two other practices that I’ve engaged for the majority of my approximate 23,000 days on earth. Writing and riding my bike.
Meditation, creative writing, and cycling.
Yes, these have been lifelong anchor activities for me. But anchors to what?
Mindfulness, meaning, and movement.
The three words just popped into my mind, offering a pithy alliterative summary of what I consider useful and positive activities.
Despite my insanely itchy nose, I was now feeling elated by this gift of a clear framework for what matters to me, a condensed manifesto to guide my actions and contribution in life. Indeed, I’ve felt strongly enough about these principles for human flourishing that I’ve spent time helping others to practice them.
I recently started an online community months ago for writers that is thriving, and have just built another for those wishing to develop a consistent meditation practice.
Why not also offer encouragement for more people to get their brain on a bike?
Yes!
A wave of rightness washed through me. I could offer my support to anyone who’d like to feel more confident on a bike and consistently get out of the house for healthy exercise and to connect with their environment and community.
Instead of cursing the existence of flower dust, I was now being carried on a wave of excitement for the building and co-existence of my educational projects, which now all of a sudden included a cycling community. As these ideas were being downloaded in my meditative practice, I was attempting to stay actively aware of my breath and body. It wasn’t my job to think inspired thoughts, it was my job to simply stay present. And, in fact, doing so allowed these notions to flow spontaneously from an abundant source.
When I reached the end of my meditation period, I got up off my cushion and headed out for exercise. Meditation often produces such gushes of inspiration, filled with rightness and potential, similar to the way we have dreams where anything seems possible, but by the time you’ve reached breakfast you start to question the brilliance of the thing and wonder, “What was I thinking?” My love for moving through open space on my bike was instantly affirmed, but then immediately challenged by the same incessant judgments I battle all the time.
“Who are you to act like a cycling expert?”
”Yes, you’ve been biking your whole life, but what do you know?”
”There are so many people better qualified to head up a cycling community than you.”
”You’re always starting things that you don’t complete. This is just going to be another failed project on your list.”
On and on these judgmental thoughts battered my initial enthusiasm as I glided down the street to the waterfront and along the parkway where the most egregious pollen producers were on full display.
I was on the bike path now, alongside spring-drunk pedestrians who were marveling at the spectacular explosion of color from an adjacent cherry tree.
There it was.
Right in front of me.
Proof that abundance and diversity are the natural and lawful means by which evolution unfolds. Why was I questioning my instinct to join the abundance parade by allowing imposter syndrome to shoot down a naturally arising inspiration?
“Excuse me!”
Suddenly a middle aged woman on a bike was right in front of me, waving me down like a stranded motorist in need of help.
I pulled to the side of the path where she was standing beside her bike, looking down at her front wheel through thickly furrowed brows. She was a visiting tourist from Spain who had rented a bike, but the front brake was making an annoying squeal every time she started rolling forward.
“Do jou know da bike mechanical?” she inquired in broken English.
As it turned out, the cable tensioner on the front brake had been too aggressively threaded. It took me only a minute to make the adjustment and when she hopped back on to test my fix, the offending sound had vanished. To her it seemed like magic. Her eyebrows shot up with excitement and she lunged forward to embrace me in a highly perfumed hug.
“Oh! Thank you very much,” she exclaimed while straddling the saddle. “Muchas gracias!” she said over her shoulder as she set back off down the path.
I was happy to be able to help, of course, but it wasn’t until I was back on my own bike rolling past the sea of pink cherry blossoms that I registered what had just happened.
A meditation session that had begun with suffering from nature’s abundance opened me to a flow of insight that prompted a way to contribute that felt aligned and inspired. Leaving my meditative state behind I immediately started questioning the inspiration and allowed imposter syndrome—a miserly inner voice that tells us we cannot contain multitudes—to override the sense of rightness I had experienced about being a cycling ambassador.
I had just been contemplating, for the first time in my life, that I might support others with the activity of cycling.
Just minutes later, also for the first time, a random stranger from another continent who didn’t know anything about the last hour of my experience specifically flagged me down out of a passing crowd and asked for my help with a matter related to cycling.
Don’t tell me the universe is not a magnificently intelligent weave of interdependent phenomenon that it’s possible to align with in a way that feels impossible to the logical mind, but entirely natural and reasonable to the human spirit.
I’m 100% convinced that science will continue to run behind human experience and decades later provide proof of natural wisdom that we’ve been instinctively guided by all along.
We’re so much more connected to one another, to nature, to subtle realms of energy and experience than the western mind will allow us to admit. And it’s that same mind telling us not to go overboard with our enthusiasm, our sense of potential, and our capacity for service.
What signs have you been ignoring lately, chalking up the convergence of aligned opportunities, inspired conversations, and creative thoughts to mere coincidence and then side-stepping a universe that’s clearly trying to get your attention and point you in a purposeful direction?
Those signs might make us uncomfortable at first, but the dissonance of seeking shelter in activities that waste our time, distractions that defer our passion, and safe habits that keep us small is an even greater discomfort—one that we’ve just learned to ignore—but which blocks our access to a lifetime of abundant joy.
What about joining me and saying yes to some divine discomfort today?
Wouldn’t it be worth a few sneezes to fully blossom?
Stay tuned for my new cycling community.
Cycalogical — A better mindset by bicycle.
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This is the second major, meaningful synchronicity story I’ve heard this week. Thank you for sharing something with a high Woo Score. It’s helps us all embrace the spiritual side of life.
The sneezes I don't but battling pollution from a very close interstate highway is a daily battle for being able to breath. As a cancer patient partly on supplemental oxygen I take not one breath for granted. I think the universe shares a wisdom beyond logic, felt by the human spirit. At least that's my perception whenever I can venture outside. Science often trails our intuitive understanding of deep interconnectedness. I wonder though are we dismissing aligned opportunities as mere chance, ignoring the universe's purposeful nudges? These are the things I ask the birds in this rural community.