{"id":1404,"date":"2018-12-15T17:54:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-15T17:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/?p=1404"},"modified":"2018-12-31T18:33:16","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T18:33:16","slug":"my-life-as-an-icicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/my-life-as-an-icicle\/","title":{"rendered":"My life as an icicle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Often, when I&#8217;m contemplating the spiritual realm and how to progress, images come to me. Today, it&#8217;s icicles (mid-December &#8211; spot on!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" data-src=\"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/icicle-analogy-spiritual-journey-e1544896027277.jpg\" alt=\"icicle analogy for spiritual journey\" class=\"wp-image-1408 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/199;\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s amazing how rich one image can be for the purpose of analogy! The icicle&#8230;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 &#8212; some dangling from rooftops, some from lampposts, tree branches, traffic lights &#8212; each with its own seeming individuality and group identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, of course, we all know the icicles are just a substance, water, and they&#8217;ll become water again in relatively short order. We know the freezing, <em>the energetic slowing down to a state of appearing solid<\/em>,\u00a0 (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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Circling back, I&#8217;ve always been haunted by questions &#8211; &#8216;What was I before I was born? What will I be after the body dies? What is the nature of beingness?&#8217; What I&#8217;m learning is, just because the rooftop icicle won&#8217;t experience the ocean as an icicle, it doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s not the nature of its being. I&#8217;m starting to get what Einstein meant, about levels of thinking&#8230;<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Often, when I&#8217;m contemplating the spiritual realm and how to progress, images come to me. Today, it&#8217;s icicles (mid-December &#8211; spot on!). It&#8217;s amazing how rich one image can be for the purpose of analogy! The icicle&#8230;it starts as airborne water, then falls as either raindrops or snow, freezes to a surface, and then seems [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1409,"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions\/1409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/5startimes.com\/cjsalvar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}