A Masked World

On April 25, 2014, after my massage I turn north on Merchant toward the post office and past Radius that finally opened Thursday night. I think of going in for lunch, but don’t want to sit alone. I mail a check and know I want to eat before going home. I turn onto Sixth Avenue and know I will go to Braums. I ask within, Really, after the way my stomach has felt this week? Yes, it’s okay to go to Braums.

Eating in a booth near the front windows, a Hispanic family with two small children sits down in the booth next to me. I think it odd, since there are so many other booths available. A little girl, maybe age 4 sits facing me. She has very long black hair braided down the back, folded up and neatly pinned to her head. She’s wearing a sweet white summer pinafore sparsely scattered with delicately lined lavender flowers. The little boy faces away from me. He is maybe three and has burr-cut black hair and the black curved sunglasses atop his head catch my attention. I realize that someone has modeled or taught him that, and there are children all over the world who don’t even know what sunglasses are. Then I notice his white tank top with a little silver chain around his neck, a tiny silver ID bracelet on his left wrist and a tiny silver ring around is left ring finger. He’s dressed just like his parents want him to look, an image of someone he/they love, admire and want to be like. They have shown him how or modeled it for him and it is not from himself. It is all something he is taught to put on.

I continue to eat and look out the window at the still closed Rice King restaurant and other buildings down the street. One used to be an Italian restaurant and is now a fast loan office. The Auto Zone is where Vista Burger used to be and Waters True Value used to be Safeway. I notice the natural progression of thoughts, wondering if the Rice King owners had checked out the building karma before they bought it, they might have learned that the place already had a rotation pattern of short-term failures.

With no particular reason, thought or ah-ha, in a moment everything changes yet nothing changes. Somehow I see the whole world in an entirely different way even though it is exactly the same. I simultaneously see it from the same perspective yet from a higher perspective. All the cars going by with people in them thinking that this is what is real, and not knowing this is all illusion. They don’t remember that nothing we see is real for any other reason that because we are trained to focus on it and therefore it manifests and seems real. All the vehicles are the same size yet they seem small like toys or a virtual reality computer game. All the different types of cars, all the different kinds of bodies, it is like we are all playing this giant game of life, role playing like a drama, wearing the costumes of bodies, clothes, hair styles, cars, houses, families, friends and communities.

I am aware of a totally complete connection with my Universally Wide Spirit compacted into my tiny body as I view this earthy world as the illusion it is. Tears of joy and relief fill my eyes, yet I continue to eat as if nothing has changed, when everything has changed. I see it all, I am it all, I feel it all, I know it as I completely connect with my Higher Spirit stuffed inside my body.

I notice the little girl who was previously busy in her family eating experience. In this moment her head leans backward slightly, motionless and atypically fixed given her previous activity. Her dark brown eyes are fixed in a stare on me and I can feel Her Soul seeing straight into mine. My eyes lock onto hers and look straight into her Soul. In this moment I feel as if she also knows what I know and we look past the play, the masks of our bodies to the Essence of each other that is One. Still gazing into my Soul she opens her little mouth and says, “Hi!” My eyes still connected to hers, my mouth is full of food, so I smile sweetly with a look that acknowledges her Essence and I give her a little wave of my left hand as I hold my ice cream cone in my right. I continue to smile until she returns to her family eating experience. I wonder if a connection like this has an impact on her, even though we may never again see or know each other. I know I have an eternal connection to her and she has changed my life, just like the young man walking in University Mall in Anchorage in 2004. How easily I forget these connections when I’m lost in the belief of the illusion.

My state of awareness continues and the emotion arises occasionally with tears. I don’t know whether to cry or laugh. I tap covertly a little, but I know I need to allow the emotion the freedom to manifest. When I finish my food, I go to my car and start the engine for the air conditioner. I sit motionless allowing a nameless emotion to arise. It is truly laughter and sobs simultaneously with equal strength. Everything is an illusion that we are all subscribing to, buying into, a grand cosmic play with amazing costumes and props that spread around the globe. Only most of us are clueless, even I am mostly clueless, believing it too, but this moment is my gift. It’s an absolute gift because I have done nothing unusual to invoke it, except maybe for sharing honestly in my massage session with Dee and asking her to dowse.

My awareness maintains a progression of moments in this state of knowing and wonder. Is this Enlightenment? My body doesn’t feel any different. I am more aware of feeling like I’m stuck and slogging through this life in the mud of my body. I know that I will continue to play the role, wearing my body costume, wearing other costumes on my body, like clothes, hats, jewelry, facial expressions, just like masks. I will return to the script that I choose to write as I play my role. I know that after Enlightenment, I will go to Waters Hardware to explore the flowers and buy things to take home for enjoyment, others’ and mine.

Driving across the street and getting out of the car, I hold the state of awareness. I browse the outdoor garden flats and I am less resistant to buy the more expensive already potted arrangement that someone skillfully arranged perfectly to my liking. In fact it is probably less expensive in time and money, which are inconsequential. I choose what makes me happy.

I pay and put the flowers in my car and drive home inside another layer of costuming and mode of maneuvering through this worldly play. I know the awareness will fade again, but maybe not for so long or so deeply. Maybe this revelation will become more and more transparent of all the masked layers we use to cover ourselves, hiding our Essence from others, and ourselves. If I practice this awareness daily, I will create more awareness. It’s up to me to make the conscious choice. If I forget, I hope I will notice another sweet spirit, still fresh on this planet in a tiny body costume that speaks out from deep eyes to say “Hi!” to my Soul and remind me again.  —© Copyright B. Grace Jones 2014 All Rights Reserved.