Separated from nature I am whole. I feel whole at least. Four walls define me. I am wealthy because my bank defines me so. I am healthy, because I do nothing to interrupt my experience of it. I am good because I do nothing more than watch TV and eat. So easy is life when I am divided from nature behind these four walls.

And yet nature is here and she calls me. My organs can react, my mind can sadden. My body can decay and these four walls can begin to close in on my hopes. I find, after a time, that I cannot hide from the beauty of truth, I am nature.

That nothing is missing is the great secret. One we often wish would not be true because as good as it is, to reveal to me all that I could desire in life, irrespective of my dreams for it in a different format, I am left aware, that there is a dark side to this particular one of nature’s secrets. I must also deal with the dark side of it.

If nothing is missing, so too, as well as abundance of what I want, I must also reflect on the abundance of what I don’t want. I don’t want pain. I don’t want to feel small. I don’t want weakness of will, nor negativity. But, if I am so bold as to embrace the abundance of what I would consider my best, I must also consider the abundance of what is my worst, and embrace it somehow.

It has been the mark of all religion and self help to eliminate the negative. To be cowardly in denying the dark side of our soul. We project such ambitions when we judge another “she is so cruel” or “he is arrogant” and by implication return to our separation from nature inside the four walls where we, by inference, do not have to witness those qualities within us. Immune we are from those things we judge in others. And yet, we are nature, and nature’s first secret is, nothing is missing. We are what we judge.

To embrace the spiritual is not more, for most people, an escape from nature. We might again enter a room, isolated from nature and claim to “be at peace” or “at one” and yet, we cannot walk with such a concept amongst others at work without judging them. The partition we make between ourselves and others, call it a religious belief of Good greater than our Evil, or a spiritual pursuit to upset the balance between peace and war, we are only temporary in our delusions, we are nature and nature has no such partitions.

I walk out of these four walls and the sand is cold against my feet. My circulation in my legs is hampered by multiple spinal surgeries, it hurts to walk on the beach in the morning. And while this has my attention, I miss a sunrise, or a beautiful human doing their morning health. I might miss a whale, or a dolphin, or choose not to swim with my now numb lifeless feet. But if I am to embrace nature, my painful feet must be as welcome as the sunrise. It is all one great reality. Beautiful and yet dark. I am nature, and nature’s secret is safe with me, nothing is missing, including pain.

It is only me who has put the label of pain as something bad. Actually there is as much beauty in the pain of my feet as there is in the sunrise. Nature in my feet to forcing blood through narrowed tubes to keep them alive, is this not an act of love? Is not my pain a guidance by the universe to keep me relevant in my work and duty as a purpose driven part of the greater plan? Yes, I might admire and worship the sunrise as a reminder of hope and spirit and vision of life, this is essential, but I must not hide behind the four walls and try to incubate myself away from the torture of discomfort. In nature, the great secret is that discomfort is the trigger for change. It is not bad, it is essential.

Emotionally driven we choose avoidance of pain, or to label it as ignorance. But the great secret is that nothing is ever missing and what we repress other’s express. The denial of our own “ever present motivation to improve” called pain, infects others with it. We deny our pain and repress it’s gifts and then try to help those we love who have the unfortunate duty of expressing what we repress. Their pain is out pain. These four walls cannot hide me from that witnessing. I am nature and her great secret is “nothing is missing” – what I repress, other’s express.

Behind these four walls I can feel sad on the exact day my lover feels happy. The balance is often conspicuous. When my partner feels on top I feel below. When I chant peace, she might feel at war with herself or others. We are never isolated from the great secret of nature. Nothing is missing and what we repress, others express.

There is only one way out of this delusional duplicity we call a half life. Nature is you. You are nature. What you judge you breed, attract or become. It would seem that, whether behind four walls in isolation or our on the beach with frozen toes, we cannot hide from nature’s great secret, nothing is missing and isolation from that secret is impossible. We are nature. It would seem that we are for the greater part wanting to deny our pain rather than grow from it, and embrace our “light” as we do the sunrise, and pretend that every ray of golden morning sun, is killing something or someone at the exact same rate it is birthing something new.

Your spirit is in nature. But beware of the denial or judgement that your darkness is a sign of error, moreover, it is a sign of right. The balance must be. And from the darkness we grow.

With Spirit

Chris