The other night I decided to take a walk on a beach. It was quite dark, and I didn’t know if I would be able to see where I was going so I brought a flashlight. Curiously, even though there was fog and no moon, after my eyes got adjusted to the darkness, there was enough light to see where I was walking, but just barely.
I like to walk at the edge of the incoming waves- and after walking for a while I looked down at my feet as I walked. Every time I took a step, the sand lit up. I had never seen anything like it. I knew what it was- but had never before seen them- tiny bio-luminescent sea life that gave of their own light when they were disturbed. And then I really looked at the small breakers coming in, and just as the waves broke, they too lit up from these same bio-luminescent organisms. (Possibly Noctiluca.)
The decision to walk on the beach was a spontaneous one, and had I chosen to do something else, or walked earlier when there was still daylight and not the near-absolute dark, I would not have seen these tiny bio-luminescent creatures.
Sometimes there are such amazing things that go on in our lives, if we can only let go to do something unusual, out of our normal expectations, in a time frame that is completely spontaneous. How much have we already missed, and as yet continue to have the opportunity to experience?
Though the flashlight was useful in that night time walk, I’m glad I chose to turn it off, and notice the subtle presence of those small creatures. Alan Watts talked about our focus of attention being like a spot-light. If we turn our thinking off, like the flashlight, there is no telling what we may notice, with our spontaneously enlarged awareness, such as tiny lights of being, glowing in the dark.
©2011 Anthony S. Wright, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved.
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