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Illuminations
A materialist could say, "I love trees!" Another person could say, "I love trees... and trees are more than trees. In fact, I love trees more for being more than trees." Yet, who can see trees are more than trees?
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Usually people work hard to make things happen. Yet it might be that things happen by themselves, coming out of nowhere.
*John Tarrant. Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life.
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Tarrant shares a story. He says of it, "Here's a story about understanding coming out of nowhere for a child in kindergarten." An artist acquaintance shared this personal experience from childhood with Tarrant.
Some of the old school buildings in Los Angeles had high ceilings and clerestory windows. A boy was sitting at his little chair in kindergarten when he saw the yellow light coming in through the high windows. Dust motes swirled in the beam of light. He noticed how bright they were and kept watching; then, suddenly there was no distance between him and the light. He disappeared. He didn't know how long he was gone; there was no time.
When he heard a voice calling, he didn't recognize the name at first; it didn't have anything to do with him. Then he heard the other children laughing and wondered what they were laughing about. It was the teacher calling him.
After that, the things he saw were beautiful in their own right. Faces seemed more real, and what was real was beautiful. He didn't really have a name anymore; he was the beam of light. And it didn't have to be a beam of light. It could be a Coke can or another child, and he would feel that connection. His sense of yours and mine had shifted to something like, "My hamburger is yours, your house is mine."
When the grownups around him fought and argued, he felt sad for them, that they didn't understand, and couldn't see what he could see.
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Sometimes, the curtain parts and a window opens. Suddenly, you see there is so much more out there, and out there is, also, here. You will return to your habitual consciousness, but with more insight into what truly is. You may share what you saw, you may not.
One thing is for sure... you are not, and will never be, the same. And you may spend the rest of your life learning what that one opening meant and means. What it means may change over time, but you will never deny what you saw. Once seen, always seen.
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Now, imagine this possibility. Epiphanies are happening all the time. We just tend not to notice. Is that possible? Could it be we are thinking too much? Too busy? Too afraid to stop and see, to listen, to be? To see, to listen, to be, we may not need to crawl, but we may need to slow down. To experience experience happens when there is space for it to happen.
(C) brian k wilcox, 2025
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