The Beauty of Creation and The Place Between

Story and photos by Deanna Fry, Circle Member & Mentor

It was mid-March and I was driving down to the Ajax Waterfront.  My hand drum beside me, my intention was to drum and sing by the water to express the gratitude I was feeling for the natural world around me.  COVID-19 was a concern but the official lockdown had not yet commenced.  As I got closer to my destination, I began to hear a simple tune and started humming.  By the time I arrived at the Paradise Beach parking lot, I was smiling broadly and feeling excited to share the new creation that was forming within me.

I parked and kept humming as I walked along the winding path down to the water.  When I arrived, I was struck, as always, by the powerful Elemental Connections I feel when I come here.  Water, Fire, Earth, Air, and the Spirit of Life ~ gathered so magnificently in one place.  The waves, rocks, pebbles, sand, sky, clouds, wind, birds, and trees; all of us bathed in the energy of the sun’s deeply penetrating light and warmth.  I began to play my drum and hum the tune, breathing deeply and savoring with all my senses.  

I felt something stir within.  Words rose and I began to sing, “The Beauty of Creation”, while my drum joined me.  The tune, words and drumbeat repeated themselves again and again, as I turned slowly in circles to behold and cherish the natural beauty surrounding me.   It became a prayer of deep gratitude and love to Mother Earth; a mantra meditation for All My Relations and All of Creation.  

As I continued, I was filled with a profound sense of joy and belonging.  I began to feel the love and gratitude I was sending out circle back to me.  Waves of sensation rose through my feet and showered down from my head, meeting in my heart.  “Look into your heart, now’s the time to start,” the Beauty of Creation sang back to me in a compassionate embrace.  Love and light were streaming from the inside out, and from the outside in.  The Circle of Life felt complete, unbroken, and whole as it never had before.

Now’s the time to start, to look into your heart, and see the beauty of Creation.

I was experiencing the reciprocity of giving and receiving at the same time; of ‘BE’ing an intricate a part of the very thing I was singing about.  Just as I was loving Creation, I was being loved by Creation.  The evolving song I offered was itself an act of creation.  At that moment I understood with every part of me that creation is both a noun and a verb; a ‘being’ and a ‘doing’.  I was balanced, in the Middle, the Place Between, where it becomes ‘both, and’ instead of ‘either, or’.  This experience of simultaneousness was something I had thought about for so long, the Tao, the Fulcrum, Plato’s ‘Mean Between the Extremes’. 

I had come to Lake Ontario that day to give thanks for Nature’s incredible Beauty of Creation that I perceive through all my senses, and which sustains me, even in the darkest of times.  I left with a ‘gnowing’, that there is no separation between the Sacred Spiral of Creation to which I sang, and the continuously evolving energy that is me.  I am the Beauty of Creation, and so are you.  We are one, as experienced through life, gratitude, love, and the myriad acts of self-expression that are Creation itself.  

I briefly shared the story of my waterfront visit and the simple mantra that came of it on our next monthly WOCC Wings of Light community Zoom gathering.  Then the second and third verses of the song arrived while I was preparing for the Way of the Circle Mentors-in-Training Zoom gathering a short while later.  Perhaps more will come during the stillness of this metamorphic time of self-isolation, sequestering and ‘vulnerabravery’ the pandemic has gifted us with.

As humans, we are the Beauty of Creation.  I invite you to allow and welcome an experience of the Beauty of Creation into your heart space; to exist for a moment in that non-dual place between being and doing, giving and receiving, ‘Within/Without’.  Especially now, as we come closer to the sacred time of the Summer Solstice, where the dark and the light are in various states of balance all around the world.  The Beauty of Creation; see it,  be it and create something to offer up in an expression of gratitude to the Circle of Life in the loving, reciprocal uni/multiverse of which we are each and all an integral part.

SONG: The Beauty of Creation

Watch video & listen to song

The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation.

Look into your heart,
Now’s the time to start,
Now’s the time to start,
To look into our hearts,
 And SEE the …

The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation.

To BE with our emotions,
Is an important notion,
Revealing what to shed,
To move beyond our heads,
And BE the …

The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation.

Germinating seeds,
Growing into trees,
Rooting down below,
Rising up to grow,
We ARE the …

The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation,
The beauty of Creation.

Summer Solstice: Home Practice

Take yourself to a favorite place in Nature where you can BE alone for a time in meditation, gratitude and preparation for the coming Summer Solstice on June 20th, 5:43PM (EST).

Allow yourself to arrive and receive the beauty of this place with all your senses.  What are you grateful to see, hear, smell, taste, feel and ‘gnow’?  Invite an openness to come into balance, to encounter that Place Between.  Give yourself time for the experience to deepen, and notice any thoughts, sensations, emotions, or impulses that arise.  Simply watch and allow for as long as feels right.

Now, ask yourself how you might creatively express what you have become aware of, either in the moment or later through any means of your choice.  Even the smallest creative act to convey intention.

Close by sending gratitude and love to All That Is, and ‘real’ize that you too are an expression of the Beauty of Creation.