Ripples of falling whispers

I (the dragonfly) 

I saw a thin line of light separating a wall and the ground beneath, 
trying to fly as slow and low as possible into this gap. 
The moment right after my head entered this gap, 
I am in an ocean. 

There, gravity is confusing, 
gravity exists in fire, 

I fell into the flame. 

Falling, witnessed by two dolphins on their first date. 
My body did not burn, 
stayed in the coexistence of fire and water.

There, the borders are spacious. Borders are not walls between spaces, but like breathing translucent skin made of fluid densities of dust. The earth’s surface is not the border separating the world into above-ground and below. There are pores in the soil breathing in air and dust above the ground’s surface. Nor does the ocean’s surface divide the world, as there are air bubbles underneath the water and water particles in the air. Sounds travel through spaces, dimensions, borders and memories. Like immersing in darkness, we don’t see where one sound ends. 

Can we hear?

The sound of falling before a nut touches the ground. The subtle sound when a nut touches dust, air, water and dream particles during the falling. The sound from last night’s dream. The echo that appears prior to the actual sound. The same sound that drops unexpectedly in your and my eardrums simultaneously even though we are physically and spatially far away from each other…

To hear these sounds, maybe we could practice falling gently and passionately—into sleep, into love, into the unknown, with gravity from the earth’s core, gravity from the dreamlands, gravity from another being. And practicing being and feeling comfortable in this transient state, swimming with its elastic duration. Bodies, minds, hearts, … might feel vulnerable in falling. Still, maybe this vulnerability is one of the elements of caring, of empathetically listening, of passing through in-between spaces, of experiencing the complexity of existing, and of …  

Falling asleep, falling into gravity from the dreamlands, is the fall that we practice daily. The body sinks into a vulnerable state in a safe space, knowing there will be a return to the awaking reality. It is different from falling completely one way into the void. 

One night I slipped into a pond full of Nymphaea Lotus
where Sleepy Ears grew out of the water surface, lying next to lotus leaves. 
They fell awake when hearing the moon arise 

It was only in recent years that I remembered Sleepy Ears. Who accompanied me throughout my childhood and teenage years, every day at schools in Taiwan, where everyone naps collectively after the lunch break. When we met again after a long time, Sleepy Ears asked me, is it possible to practice sleeping as a state of active learning? Just like how we attentively sleep in the forest, sensing a vibrant soundscape. 

Sleepiness is often seen as unproductive and useless, but maybe there is a misunderstanding in that point of view. The daytime mind might forget the inspiring state of the sleepy mind. This in-between-state could be a space for sensing, listening, and noticing from a not-fully awaking state. Like listening in dreams. Which allows memories that are kept in our body to emerge, memories that a body learnt from not only this lifetime, memories that an awakened mind not necessarily remember. 

Listening in silence, trying hard not to disturb the most fragile ears around.
Let the body dissolve into air around, become translucent.
Like dust flowing and glowing from outer space to the most hidden corner. 

As much as being a curious human being wanting to know more about secrets of environment, of life, of being; we need to leave as much space for secrets to remain unheard, unnoticed, untouched and unknown. As much as our desire to expand our sensuous potentials, to feel emotions before a physical touch arrives, to read shared memories through diving into one’s eyes, to see the invisible sea, to hear silent waves, Fragile Ears need stillness and secrets need shelters. It’s okay not to know everything, it’s okay to just quietly notice without saying anything. 

On a hill, the sky was at the same time day and night
Seven people standing in a circle,
drawing seven red circles.
It was something like a ritual, more precisely, a funeral.

It sounds windy, 
it was mountains singing melodies,
bedtime melodies for a longer sleep.

Remembering, forgetting
Living, dying
Emerging, decaying 
Awaking, sleeping,
Dreaming

Thinking about dreams and death is confusing, even though the experience happens every night. The word ‘dreamy’ might mislead one about the holistic aspect of the dream realm. Nightmares and darkness are both ‘dreamy’. In darkness, landscapes have no edges, and the border between the body and surroundings dissolves. In darkness, it is spacious, immense, and full of potential. There, relations between objects are in gradients. There is no absolute good and evil. In darkness, things that are hidden in the shadows in order to accomplish an innocent utopia, become equal to the beautiful ones. Maybe a gentle approach to nightmares, darkness, the unknown, fears, and death is to recognise the in-between spaces, where multiple realities, feelings, and principles comfortably coexist.

That one night, we looked at the sky,
our collective conscious attention 
(or love) created a bright wide falling star, 
falling with us together. 

Another night after the dragonfly revisited this year, 
I (we) saw a meteorite around a loop-shaped castle, maybe you 
(the dragonfly) saw the same one from afar?

Crossing visible and invisible landscapes, empathy fields are accessible through the mind, conscious attention and imagination. When listening together, whether listening in the same physical room or through radio that crosses the geographical limitations of a sonic space, we might be visiting a shared empathy field. It is an invisible field that hosts different spectrums of feelings, thoughts and emotions from all the beings that exist in and outside of the universe. In this impermanent field, through the tuning of sound, listeners visit fragments of places, landscapes, memories, imaginations, emotions and dreams that seem personal, but perhaps they are not. Perhaps through listening telepathically, intuitively and shyly, these fields would be explored and visited with respect, care, and trust. These fields that exist as multiple realities overlapping with this one. Here and there, there are here.

There, 
the dragonfly see us echoing in water caustics dreams.
will we meet again here?