There is a tiny white flower with five petals on a stubby little plant with broad dark green leaves. The flowers smell heavenly. It is a kind of wild Gardenia, a Tiare. I walk along the hard packed red earth on the crest on the trail to the magic place on top of the sacred mountain at the head of the Bay du Prony. My shadow strides ahead of me, with great confidence, moving easily across the red hard packed earth. It begins to run. It has a determined look about it as it starts up the steep slope.

My shadow has been here before. It leads the way.

We reach the place where the gray-green lichens have a small colony beneath a tree. I pause to look at them, miniature trees created by the symbiotic relationship of algae and fungi. They are friends, looking just as they did when I first saw them many years ago. Hurry on.

I approach the second stand of trees. Now I have the first clear view of the Moira, sitting at anchor in the Carenage. I see wind slicks in the pass like stretch marks on a woman’s belly, shortly after she has given birth. I laugh at my thoughts, realizing the wind slicks are, indeed, a place where sea creatures go shortly after birth.

A sign of birth and death. How strange the death of one shall be the life of another. In the blink of an eye, a zooplanker dies and a miniscule droplet of oil rises to the surface to become part of the wind slick, part of the nourishment for some other sea creature on its way to becoming. What a wondrous cycle, always different, always shifting, always becoming, always dying - just like the windslicks themselves, on the surface of the sea.

The secret to learning art of any kind is concentration upon that which you would learn. Concentration of your awareness from all the billions of impressions and events that impinge upon your mind at every second of every day. Concentration. Moving the center of your familiarity into the center of that which you desire to learn.

Now I reach the outer ramparts of the secret place. I can see the Moira clearly from up here. I can see the windslicks better too, slowly forming, making new patterns, like threads of life, like the thread of awareness in chaos - strings moving across the surface of the sea. Strings of all the vectors of winds, currents, fatty oils, eggs. Strings.

And would I understand these from the viewpoint of the upper outer edge, I would need to know about intervals of awareness.

Intervals of awareness.

Those stretch marks on the surface of the sea are there all the time, every day, every night. Sometimes broader - stretching out to cover the whole sea in a calm slick. Sometimes narrower, blown together by wind and current. But they are there, day in and day out. From the viewpoint of an egg passing through its stream of life the moment at the surface in the windslick is but a flash, an instant, done too soon to be aware of or understand. Happening so early in life, in such a small interval, but never forgotten, in all the millennia of living.

So I ask you. How can I show the intervals of awareness and the windslicks of the surface of the sea as tools for becoming, as tools for understanding? What graphics would I need?

I am the gateway. I am the gateway into life. In the dark depths of the pupil of my eye, in the center of my being, I am the gateway, I am the passage into life. I am the moment, I am the surround, I am the portal of awareness. I am the portal through which the fractal seed unfurls.

I look out over this morning, I look out over today, I look out over the valley through which the sacred river flows. And I see in the distance the pathway that leads out of the valley to the plains and the mountains beyond. I hear the birds. They are not calling for me. I see the flowers, blossoming in the morning sun. They are not flowering for me. I am a gateway, I am a portal, an entrance. I am the unfurling of awareness. I am awareness as it unfurls.

There is a flower before me. Another white flower like the one I found at the foot of the mountain, but this is a special flower, all by itself on the topmost top of the small tree near the center of the grove on the top of the mountain. I pull the branch over to me and smell it. It has the most beautiful aroma.

Why do I find that aroma so beautiful? How is it I am able to smell it? And what does this flower have to do with the interval of awareness?

I am here, I am there. This scent sends me back to the funeral parlor where my father lies. The same smell, the gardenias. I see myself standing there looking at his dead body. His friends and acquaintances moving forward to pay their last respects. And I, standing there, small, compact, hiding, eased out of my own being by death. I the boy, standing aside from myself in the perfumed room. I see myself standing here, on top of the Magic Mountain in the Bay du Prony. Grown old. Older than my Father when his awareness stopped.

Why? Why did you bring me that memory? Why did you bring me to this time? Why this span of awareness - from my Father’s Death to Now?

The opening of a time portal in the scent of a flower.

It was you who asked, "What does this flower have to do with intervals of awareness." It was you who asked and you who answered. Or is it you who answers?

There is a reality, a forcefulness in the answer. Perhaps you yourself did not supply this reality. And this thrust of reality is the flower’s message concerning the interval of awareness.

The fractal seed unfurls, but you are not only a gateway. You are not only a portal.

The moments, the intervals of awareness, expand within the fabric of your being. Within the fractal unfurling of your own destiny.

They are the air currents, they are the water currents, but more than that, the windslicks are also themselves.

The clouds are the thermal differences, the characteristics of the wind and the dynamics of water in the sky, but more than that, the clouds are themselves.

Yes, you see yourself as a portal, you see the fractal seed entering into that portal, but what you do not see, what is so intangible, what is so hard to understand is that the unfurling is neither the portal - no - nor is it the fractal seed, it is not the wind, not the currents, not the differences in temperatures between the water and the air. The unfurling is itself. It is a being. It is an entity. It is itself, as are you.

It is more than thought made visible. It is more than the thinking. It is more than words. It is awareness. Awareness is more than words. Awareness is the instrument that tensions the words into being.

And now the grand question.

The full cycle as you walk around the edge of the mountain and come again into view of the Sea. What do those windslicks have to do with the interval of awareness?

I feel an understanding, beyond words. I approach this awareness. Walking forward towards the outlook. I feel a vibration, an oscillation like a giant engine thrumming. I know, intellectually, that this is the error of expectation, the news of a difference. The cycle that does not complete. This is the change in change, the residue of becoming, learning, being, and yet - the interval of awareness.....escapes me.

Exactly!

Exactly!

The Interval of awareness Escapes Me.

Good, you have said it.

Through this portal, through the eyes, through this gateway, the interval of awareness escapes me. This is your second lesson. The fractal seed unfurls. In order for a fractal seed to unfurl, my friend, it must escape me. In order for words to exist, to be fractal seeds, the words must escape me.

Very good!

Wandering about here on the pathway, on the top of the magic mountain. For all of this to exist, for the images in your mind to form, for the model of the world you perceive to emerge, for the smell of the flower and the sound of the wind through the trees and the feel of your footsteps on the ground - In order for these to exist, they must escape me.

The error of expectation is that the model of reality of awareness does not exist until it escapes me.

When the fractal seed idea came into your mind as you walked upon the path at the other end of this valley, you didn’t know what it meant. You kept feeling there was something there, something deep, something understandable you must reach for.

Didn’t you?

Again and again you said the words, "the fractal seed unfurls."

Each time you said the words "the fractal seed unfurls," the words were a fractal seed unfurling. Their escapement was a mechanism, a release. The fractal seed was an instrument. The fractal seed was a gateway, The fractal seed, like the pupil in your eye, surrounded the understanding.

"The fractal seed unfurls" was an instrument from which understanding escaped, was liberated.

The interval of awareness escapes me. The interval of awareness shifts from one level to another as it leaves me. Moving up, moving down, moving in moving out. The interval of awareness is a process of escape, it begins with the escape of a signal from me now and ends with the evaluation of that expectation. The release and review establishes the interval of awareness. The error of expectations - awareness - can't exist unless the expectation escapes me to be reviewed.

It is here environment meets self and both are liberated.

The environment liberated within you, yourself liberated without you.

The interval of awareness escapes me. Say it again. The interval of awareness escapes me.

And what comes into mind as you say these words? What is released? What is it that escapes you?

It is a feeling of vibration, it is a feeling of clarity, it is a feeling of coming together of the model, of the vision. It is a feeling of assembling all of my sensations, my feet upon the ground, the air entering my lungs, the feel of this tree, the smell of this flower. It is the integration of all my senses, in a kind of a vibratory matrix that is so alive, so powerful, so clear.

Yes, and where is this happening? When, is this happening?

At intervals of awareness - too slow, too fast for anyone to know.

We know our own interval of awareness, we are conscious as it escapes with our words. As we speak to each other, or to ourselves. We know it as the words form and flow from us. But it is the interval of awareness of our cells, so quick, so clear, so precise, that forms the transparency of our vision, that forms the vistas in our minds and the mountains in the distance and the clouds high above, and the orchid clear and sparkling in the sun on the mountain in the Baie du Prony.

Say it again.

The interval of awareness escapes me.

And as it escapes me, the world comes into view. As the interval of awareness escapes from each of all my cells, from all the transmissions between my body and the world around me, from this interface of myself and reality, it becomes the vision I see before me now. And the feelings I have within me. Manifested all at the same interval of awareness.

Know for certain that there are a multitude of intervals of awareness created as your communications escape you. As the things that you do as an entity escape you. As the things that you say as a person, as the things that you feel in your heart, move within this great reality, escaping from you. These intervals of awareness escape you and are as real as the plants and trees and animals, as real as the windslicks on the sea and the myriad sea creatures becoming within them.

All that comes tomorrow, shall escape from the dreams of today.

All that shall unite in being, shall escape from us to form the future.

At each instant, the communication web of your cells creates an escapement. That escapement becomes your reality. So too, we with all the plants and animals on the planet, create a larger entity, a larger being, a larger model, a larger portal, a larger gateway and it is this that escapes into a future that we can but imagine. A future all its own.

Flowing into the homes, into the churches, and into ourselves and into our children. This ability depends on perception and communication. The ability to see what’s going on, the ability to communicate it to each other and in concert, working together, to change the face of the earth.

As the pollen escapes the flower, as the seed escapes the man, as the baby escapes the woman. So we are portals for tomorrow. And the future escapes from us.

Back to the River

I return to the road leading down to the River where Freddy is waiting for me. I am impressed. While the words and ideas impress me, I am even more aware of the last few moments of this morning's thoughts. Just after I said, "A future all its own." I was "told" to stop recording and play the tape instead. The tape was being reused from a few days ago. When I pressed the play button, the words "Flowing into all the homes...." emerged from the recorder. This is extraordinary. The words are seamless, even in tone, with the previous comments. How did I know to stop talking and start listening just exactly there? I ran the tape ahead and listened but there was nothing else that could have fit so exactly. And what went before would also not have blended so perfectly. Of course, I myself recorded the previous comments only a few days ago. But I was not paying the slightest attention to the mini-recorder at all, just turning it on when I spoke and off when I did not. I could not see how much tape had been used.

It assures me more than the words themselves, which are surprising enough, that there is a mind within me that is far more knowing than my own consciousness. A mind that could predict exactly - without a fraction of a second error - where the tape was and what words would follow. A mind that could know this far enough in advance to bring the concepts and the voice and pitch to the critical point on the unwinding tape and then tell me to stop recording, and start listening. The idea that this is pure chance, a coincidence, enters my mind as I round the corner and see Freddy by the pool. So I arrive laughing.