From Tim yesterday
I went to visit Tim for my two hours of fresh air and exercise in this new Melbourne COVID five-day lockdown. Tim lives in a normally busy city park, so when I got to him, he asked, “Okay, what's happening? There's nobody here.” So I explained the lockdown and the virus, and we had a bit of a chat about all that.
Then I asked Tim, "What do you do on a quiet day?" He said, “When there is a day that I don't have to be focused on other people or to be giving energy to other things, and I can just be, I love just being still and shining.” I asked him to explain.
Tim’s suggestion for everyone is to use these strange and difficult pandemic days to stretch the length of time that we can just be. Be still and just shine. “When it's quiet, I just stand and I focus on just being me, just being a tree. I feel the sun, the earth and me all mixing together.”
Wow, what a beautiful thing for us to just practice. . . ‘shining’. Tim explained, “Stand still, connect to the ground and then from inside, be 100% you, then 120% you, and then 150% just you radiant and expansive.”
So it's a kind of mindfulness exercise from Tim during this new lockdown. Just radiating and just being . . . shining. So have a go and see how long you can just be still, completely you. Then shine.
Tim explained more, “When you are still, and you're completely connected to yourself and you shine, you radiate an incredible amount of love. Watch me."
I watched as he did it. Tim said, “look.” So I watched and felt what Tim was doing as he ‘shined’. All of Tim began to shimmer. He seemed to be surrounded with light-bending waves that looked like the waves that you can see coming off of hot things. Along with the visual ‘shine’, the energy that he was radiating had the most beautiful sensation of acceptance and love. These feelings washed over me as a tingling energy.
Tim, as my teacher, invited me to do it too. It was a wonderful feeling of expansiveness and connection. My ‘shine’ seemed to come from an inexhaustible internal source of magic. For me it wasn’t about sending that energy out to any specific place. It was delicious to just be me, in my full radiance. I think that we can all do that. Stand, be mindful, connect, shine, and just radiate love without purpose.
I think it's interesting how sometimes we define our value by our usefulness, by the amount of interactions we have, with our busy-ness, as opposed to being just still, being 100% of who we are and accepting that we're beautiful and loving. We can choose to just shine and radiate love.
Have a go.
As a bonus I stood with my back against Tim’s trunk and we ‘shone’ together. It was one of the most profound sensations I have had in my many years of merging with other beings. The separation of Tim and me dissolved and I was suspended in the field of love. All time and sensation vanished and we became pure radiant shimmering energy of love.
Then Tim said, “Hey, there is something here for you to eat.” I was confused. What could I eat from the public park? I looked befuddled and Tim said, “Over there. Walk toward the fig trees.” I walked in that direction while still chatting with Tim in my mind, “We can’t eat those little figs, those are a different kind of ...” And then I saw them, several patches of mushrooms poking up from the ground around the roots of the giant fig trees.
Following what I’ve always been taught about wild harvesting--never take the first or the last and only harvest half-- I scooped up some beautiful mushrooms. I shared my delicious half with my next-door neighbour. In flavour, they were sort of a cross between a Portobello and a Swiss Brown; delicious when sautéed in butter. I had a lovely side dish for dinner, mushroom tacos for lunch, and a final mushroom omelet for breakfast. What a friend Tim is, shining with me and then providing dinner!