top of page

Watching the Great Roll Away

lizjaima

Mathematician, professor, and bestselling author Brian Swimme in his 1996 book The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story invited readers to a paradigmatic shift in consciousness. I recently re-read this gem of a book and was struck anew at his gentle reminder that the sun does not revolve around the earth. Yet, we use the terms sunrise and sunset as though we are in a fixed location and the sun is moving around us. As if we are not at this very moment spinning, rotating, flying through space and in fact circling the sun.

Pause for a moment. In your mind’s eye and your bodily-felt way of knowing, can you perceive the earth moving through space? Holding us close to her with a type of love we call gravity?

Instead of looking up at the night sky to identify heavenly bodies, the moon, stars and constellations, can you imagine you are looking down at the sky? Notice how difficult it seems to reconceptualize our orientation to the cosmos.

As day begins to shift toward night, and you look to the horizon – can you perceive how the spot where you are standing is rolling away from the sun? Might this sense of rolling-away help your transition to night-time sleep, rest, and dreams?

When you are up early in the morning, as you see the sun begin to emerge on the horizon, can you perceive the great rolling-forward of the day? Is it helpful to feel yourself carried forward into daytime activity, rather than perhaps having to push and shoulder your way?

We are perpetually in motion, a motion not of our creation. Not of our consciousness, nor our will. There is companionship for us in the elements of the cosmos; we are not alone.

In shifting a long-term habit of perception to align with new knowledge, it is natural to experience a phase of disorientation. It can be anxiety-provoking, or cause irritability when the ground metaphorically shifts beneath our feet, throwing us off balance. But once the transition is made and the new perspective integrated, one experiences great freedom, consolation, and awe. We need more awe in our lives, it helps us.

In those moments when the troubles of the world overwhelm, reorienting ourselves to the faithful turning of Earth, the relentless longing of gravity, and the persistence light of the sun, moon, and stars, is grounding from which we address the world and its provocations, with compassion and grace, at one with the turning.

14 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
Falling

Falling

Comments


Liz Walz Spiritual

©2022 by Liz Walz Spiritual. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page