Gravity

Yesterday, when I was walking in the woods after a couple days of rain, I saw a drop of water flashing on a pine bough, refracting sunlight and amplifying the blue hues in the sky or in the green needles it was clinging to. I don’t know how that works. Somehow, an azure nova had formed in my line of sight. It disappeared when I moved, reappeared when I tilted my head. It became clear light when I walked toward it. Then it was a drop of water, among many. And then it was a wet branch.

“Everything’s like that,” to quote a friend who says this whenever I present him with what I think is a novel idea. (Why, yes, he is trying to be infuriating.) Things look like one thing and then they look like another, depending on our perspective. We’re the blind men groping at a sliver of an elephant; we’re trying to gain some clarity by interpreting flickering shadows on the cave wall. There’s always another way to look at something, a piece of the puzzle under the table, an explanation for which we have no point of reference, a context within a context that could blow your mind if you tilted your head just so. Everything is like the gif that changes direction when you will it to with your mind.

I love the shift in perspective, the sudden new insight on some old problem. We’ve known since the beginning of time that there are infinite ways of looking at something, but it’s still like magic when the scales fall. When trying to work through something sticky, I hang on for that little flick to the head that will turn frustration into information, say, or fear into curiosity.

Two nights ago, I picked out a sleep meditation to listen to at bedtime. The meditation guide’s perspective on gravity was entirely new to me, but had such a ring of truth to it that I feel changed by it. I hadn’t thought much about gravity, but if I were to have described it last week, I might have referred to it as a weight, something to be defied, the opposite of freedom, the thing that makes our bodies sag, stoop, and fall down, an attitude of seriousness, somber and solemn. It’s why my knees hurt when I hike downhill. But this meditation guide talked about it as an embrace, something we can melt into. It is the feeling of being held close and supported by the earth. Gravity is our connection to home. It is belonging.

Since that night, I have been pausing periodically to feel the embrace of gravity, the way I might pause to revel in the sweetness of breathing. It’s such a simple shift in my perception of a concept that I never gave much thought to. But, the effect is like trying on the correct size garment after always having worn one that didn’t fit. I didn’t realize I had been uncomfortable until I got comfortable.