October 15: Inner Task Week Eight – SEEING as Feeding
“One could say the whole of life lies in SEEING
—if not ultimately, at least essentially.
To be more is to be more united…but unity grows…
only if it is supported by an increase in consciousness, of vision…
To try to see more and to see better is not, therefore,
just a fantasy, a curiosity, or a luxury.
SEE or PERISH!”
As we began this series of inner tasks on ‘seeing’ with the above quote from Teilhard, so we end the series with it. ‘To be more is to be more united…but unity grows…’ This is not simply an observation but, as Teilhard emphasizes with the utmost urgency, it is mandatory, critically active and real.
Seeing from within a three centered awareness is a way of leaning into the balancing of the energies that we can harness within ourselves, and it is this very harnessing that is coming from and moving within the WHOLE, and as Teilhard says this is growing unity. When we have sensation, feeling, and thought together online in balance we are already present in a buzzing relational field that thrives upon exchange and transmission. We are inhabiting ourselves fully and this is a radiant contribution to that which we already belong.
To put it another way, this is seeing as ‘feeding.’ This relational field of wholeness that we inhabit is completely interactive and dynamic. Feeding here is both receiving food and giving it. There is a reciprocal exchange. ‘Seeing’ has gone full-field and cosmic. And this is where the breathing that we have encountered as ‘seeing’ in prior tasks, takes full stature in presence as energetic feeding.
So, this final task is really more an extension or prolongation of all the tasks before. Carried on the breath of wholeness we make a conscious gesture of our small but categorically important kenotic donation. One way of describing this is that in the surrendering, in the exhale, we are giving, and in the in-breath, we are receiving. This is a dynamic mutual feeding.
When we are present in our centers, which our breathing so readily can provide, we become vehicles of assistance receiving and transmitting creative energy into the wider field that is always there. Be it the beloved ones who have gone before us into the worlds beyond earthly death or those still living within this world, or even the non-human life forms of the earth, we are seeing in a manner of an exchange of gifts. Seeing as breathing is feeding.
In my own life, the experiences of losing my mother, my brother, my nephew, and many more beloveds, has initiated the unfolding of an exchange that requires a seeing that is personally responsible and communally inhabited. In short, when I breathe, I am breathed. I am radically convicted in the belief that there are divine exchanges of the most holy nature that assist and transform in ways that we do not need to see cognitively, or emotionally, or even physically, but rather wholly. This is the seeing of the spirit — that ‘wind that swept over the waters.’’
In our breathing, we can consciously name and pray for persons, who have passed from this world, or we can consciously name issues and communities that we wish to exchange the reciprocal gifts needed by all, or we can simply let them go where they need to go.
The task this week is to make moments of our breathing present and interactive – to intentionally engage our breathing as a return to the Presence that is always already going on and that we NOW choose to enter, receive and donate in the unique facet of mercy that is our own personal gesture.
Crowning last week’s task, the task for this week is:
- Set appointments during the day to do the following while continuing whatever you are doing.
- Bring conscious attention to your breathing without altering its rhythm or depth (if you so desire, you may bring to mind, heart and body, people or issues/events you wish to honor, assist, and exchange energy, however this specificity is not required).
- Allow the breathing to assist in the arising of sensation and feeling in your body, and as these energies arise, radiate them outward while at the same time allowing whatever energy you may receive to flow towards you in your body. Consciously allow the flow of your breathing to facilitate this.
- Inwardly say on the inhalation of your breath “I” with your attention on the solar plexus receiving, and on the exhale inwardly say “AM” with your attention radiating outwardly from the solar plexus and spine throughout the body and outward to the worlds.
- Notice what you experience and if so prompted express gratitude.
We are attempting to see as feeding.
I close with a poem for my MOM:
Love’s Breath exhaling, creates all time and space;
Stars and dust flowing outward towards life unconfined.
We are born and sustained in Holy Breath lifelong;
Never elsewhere but deep in the winds of this Love!
Gusts bear the wings of angels respiring,
Thrust in trust of exciting composure.
Our feet touch the ground in gravity transpiring;
We journey our being in the Exhale of Love!
‘Tis true that we know not from where it comes;
Inspiring and Expiring in mystical rhythm.
The liminal mystery blows with imageless fury,
And invites us to conspire with all that there is.
And when expansion seems to reach love’s limit,
It appears to retract and withdraw time into space;
But truly, it is simply God’s Holy Inhaling,
Breathing us back into Her Fathomless Love! (tpt, 2016)
“Wisdom breathes life into her children and admonishes those who see her.” (SIR 4: 11)
Inner Task Series by Thomas Telhiard
Thomas Telhiard posted this Inner Task Series to the Wisdom School Community on Facebook from August 27 – October 15, 2021