Do you ever feel like a fish out of water?
Do you ever have that sense of being totally displaced – as if someone plucked you from your real home and plonked you into this body and this life…and didn’t give you a road map?
You go through the motions of life, living, loving and laughing to the best of your ability, earning a living, gathering your loved ones close to you, and finding your way North by trial and error and sheer determination.
Yet somewhere deep, deep inside of you, you feel like an orphan - lost and homeless. You know there must be a better way and a better place than this.
There’s this deep and nagging sense of isolation that just can’t be shifted….a sense that you are so much greater and so much more “whole” than the part of you that is living this instant on Earth.
A Return to Love
Marianne Williamson touched the edge of this concept in her beautiful book A Return to Love, where she wrote:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.”
You might be thinking, “Hey, isn’t that quote from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech?” Actually, it was incorrectly attributed to Nelson, and was in fact written by Marianne.
A Home in the Stars
As a child, I had this gnawing certainty that my parents were not my real parents, and my home was somewhere in the Stars. Don’t get me wrong – I loved my parents dearly. Yet I knew I belonged somewhere far beyond this world, in a place that is unlimited in its Light and Power, in a place I called “Home”.
We are indeed orphans on Earth, you and I. But don’t despair…there is so much more to this picture than meets the eyes….
River – a Fish out of Water
In my work as a volunteer wildlife rescuer I have a beautiful “nature being” that I’m presently caring for, who’s chosen to come to me in the form of a python. Rather intuitively I named him “River”, long before I realised how apt his name is.
River’s not really a python, any more than you and I are really a human.
River had been lying in the same spot for days, on the side of a dirt road. A caring Vet who drove along that road each day spotted him and decided to get him checked out. That was very fortunate, because River had indeed been hit by a car, and had sustained 3 broken ribs. Instead of being snapped off, these ribs were still attached and had been flattened against his body.
This will be a long and painful recovery process for him. But what struck me is River’s yearning for water. Some pythons are real “water babies” and love hanging out in water…but I’ve never seen a python so obsessed with water as River.
River soaks in a warm water bath for days and days on end. He’ll sneak out at night when no one’s watching, and occasionally I startle him with a surprise visit and catch him exploring his enclosure…..But apart from those occasional escapades, he simply wants to soak. Any time I pop my head in to check on him, his head ducks under the water like a turtle pulling its head into its shell.
Any time I pop my head in to check on him, his head ducks under the water like a turtle pulling its head into its shell.
Today as I reflected on his journey, it dawned on me that he’s as much a fish out of water as we are.
Like the beautiful Mermaid, we exist between two states - caught in the gap between water and sky. We have one foot planted on Earth, and the other resting in the Stars.
A Moment of Stillness & Aroma
Take a precious moment to sit quietly. Pause in your reading and notice the feeling that these words evoke in you. Is it hope? Is it hopelessness? Is it joy? Is it sorrow?
If you love essential oils, reach for your favourite oil or oil blend and put a drop in your palm, and breathe it in. Frankincense oil or the Young Living blend called “Hope” would be perfect choices. However, trust your intuition for whatever oil you are drawn to.
If you don’t have an essential oil within reach, respectfully pluck a beautiful flower or leaf from your garden and breathe in its delicious aroma.
Now, you’re ready to continue reading….
We may be isolated as we walk on earth…however, so is every other thing we look upon. We see a flower, a person, a fork or a tree, a child or a butterfly.
We live as if we ARE this body, as if it is US.
But just for a moment, imagine the body dissolving. What’s left in its place is a vibrating ripple of energy and life that knows no limits. It is interconnected through all things, an energy highway that is part of a vast and magnificent “ALL-ness” that we call God (by his/her many names), or Spirit, or Nature, or Divine Presence.
We are both individual, and One. And this state of presence and super-consciousness is our home.
It’s not a physical place beyond the stars as I once thought. It is a state of being that is always within us, just behind the veil of our awareness and easily within our reach.
We forget it for a while, when we try to see from of human eyes, or walk on our human legs, or hug with our human arms.
And it just takes that moment in time - that quiet instant - and we can dissolve the limitations and boundaries that we thought were around us, holding us in, and instead surrender into that river of love and life that is our true home.
Namaste!