My uncle Steve Dalquist writes short essays and for a while, he read them out loud to be broadcast on his local radio station, KCAW in Sitka, Alaska. He called the segment "ShadowBoxing." I have a CD of some ShadowBoxings in my car and the other day, I came across the one below. It brought me to tears. With my uncle's permission, I am sharing his words below.
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Am I a human being seeking salvation or a spiritual being with a seasons pass to explore Earth’s theme park called Humanity? Am I the dreamer or the dream - the potter or the vessel in process - the director or just another extra with starry eyes? Shall I live bright with purpose or wander drunk with the joy of new discovery? How serious do I need to be - is there really any need to pay credence to the arbitrary laws of man? How has the quest for individuality contributed to the divisiveness and disconnection rampant among my species? Is my consciousness a curse or merely a distraction? Will death deliver my answers or simply cause the questions to be moot?
OK, so you’re in that place where you go after you die - well after your body dies, and your soul or spirit or myoho or whatever the spark is called that keeps your heart beating and your mind full of fantasies and contradictions has left - anyway, “you” are “there” - at least the part of you that’s left, is there… in that place. And it seems like you’ve been there before, lots of times before. Countless life lines. You can smell that familiar scent of deja vu, but there’s no finger to put a point to it. And then another memory knocks on the door and you groggily begin to remember where you’ve been, who you’ve been, what you did and didn’t do - and you suddenly realize the living moment is past.
OK, so you’re starting to remember now and you’ve connected to a more consistent reality - one where time is measured in the lifetimes of solar systems and eternity stretches without measure (or concern for its measurelessness). And it’s easy to understand that all life permeates and contains all life. And in this place you recall the rhythmic truths, the karmic cycles that shape us from birth and growth, blossoming, decay, rest and Ku… from the manifest phase to the dormant phase and back to manifest. Over and over again - life is a thunder storm after the drought.
OK, so you’re beginning to get the full picture, and suddenly the rush of shapes and textures come into focus, the sights and smells and tastes and interactions with others revealed in similar physicality's, all animated in so many varieties, sentient and insentient alike, so thoroughly, deliciously evident - all in one place and time.
You’ve collected the brochures forever, it has always been the single most popular choice of destination - no question, no competition. You’re starting to see it all from a different perspective now. And you were just there and you were soooo busy, so busy trying to save yourself, so busy trying to save the world, a world already so perfect it defies comprehension to think about it now. If only you’d been able to remember then what you remember now. You know you may never have another chance - not with this crew and cast. You just missed out on the one greatest opportunity you will ever have to enjoy so delicious a morsel - the unadulterated magic of a day in the life of an eternal human moment.
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