Often, when I’m contemplating the spiritual realm and how to progress, images come to me. Today, it’s icicles (mid-December – spot on!).
It’s amazing how rich one image can be for the purpose of analogy! The icicle…it starts as airborne water, then falls as either raindrops or snow, freezes to a surface, and then seems to take on a life of its own, as additional snow falls, melts, freezing rains add to it. There seems to be many, different icicles — some dangling from rooftops, some from lampposts, tree branches, traffic lights — each with its own seeming individuality and group identity.
Well, of course, we all know the icicles are just a substance, water, and they’ll become water again in relatively short order. We know the freezing, the energetic slowing down to a state of appearing solid, (ha ha, good one!) is temporary, and, with sunlight bringing warming temperatures, the icicle will change phases, becoming less dense and shifting to liquid or mist.
Circling back, I’ve always been haunted by questions – ‘What was I before I was born? What will I be after the body dies? What is the nature of beingness?’ What I’m learning is, just because the rooftop icicle won’t experience the ocean as an icicle, it doesn’t mean it’s not the nature of its being. I’m starting to get what Einstein meant, about levels of thinking…