Month: March 2026

I am ready to touch and be touched by my world. For me, my sense of touch is pivotal in how I relate to everything. More than any other sense, touch is the avenue for me to enter into a deep connection with everything. I imagine that my first awareness of my surroundings as a newborn was through my touch. The world I became aware of awaited my touching it, and I entered into my first intimacy with all that is.

My sense of sight is highly important to me. It brings me joy and awareness of all my surroundings. Even as it is a critical sense for me , sight is constantly telling me information about what I might touch. I more deeply understand the shape of things I see, like the tree on the boulevard. Seeing the tree has meaning for me because sight reminds me of the times I have touch the roundness, roughness and hardness of that kind of tree. I see my garden plants, and I know what it feels like to feel the texture of their leaves, the softness of the petals of flowers. I see a friend, and I am instantly reminded what it feels like to embrace them in a hug.

When I am eating my cereal, I pause after each spoonful and feel the shape of everything in my mouth. My son tells me that his reaction to food is more to its texture than to its taste. I tell visitors to my garden that touching is a feature of being in my garden. I teach kids how to touch anything in my garden using one finger. The bell sounds hourly on my phone, and I am reminded to touch whatever is near and become connected with the essence of what I touch.

All my senses tell me the assorted characteristics of things. But for me they all hint at what it would be like to touch and be intimately connected. I think that I am already part of everything and everything is part of me. Touch is the most efficient way for me to experience that connection. It is the hub of all my sensory experiences.

Maybe it is the hub because I mostly experiece my connection with my whole body. I may be touching my chair with my hips, but it is my whole body that is aware of the chair. I may be holding someone’s hand, but my whole body typically is aware of their presence. Perhaps touch is like the main stem of my sensory connection with all that is. Deep awareness is internal to me, but that intimate level of concentration embodies a foundation of touch awareness.

For me, everything is waiting to be touched. Everything is waiting for me to realize deep my connection. Touch is so important to make that happen.

The use of electronic screens typically interfere with meaningful connection. For me, using screens to communicate are mostly helpful to communicate information, but they are a poor substitute for mutual, in-person awareness. Rather than bringing me together with people, screens offer a glass barrier and emphasize the myth that we are separate. Any level of interaction offered thru screens is dramatically inferior to that experienced face-to-face.

For me, there is a dramatic difference if I am using a screen to connect with one person rather than a group of individuals. Screening with a group may offer a chance to share information, but it offers little to experience the presence of individuals. It is very difficult to experience a group of people on a screen, and I typically feel like I am an outsider looking in. I am not a felt part of what is happening, even when I actively participate. Screening with a group makes all of us outsiders, we are very tangentially connected. Our separateness is emphasized.

Screening with an individual is significantly different for me. Even though we are separated by distance, I often feel their presence. I can focus on one individual, and experience them in a way similar to seeing then across a table. I can focus on one individual, unlike a group screening where I see everyone at once and my attention is scattered and very surficial. I experence a focused interaction when only one image fills the screen.

There is a lack of deep listening when there is a crowd on the screen. If I am sitting with a group of people, face to face, I can focus on one individual at a time. The opportunity for reciprocity is there, even though many of us may be in the room together. This seldom occurs when the group is on a screen.

Awareness is experienced in my body. I am much more able to have deep awareness of someone when they are the only one on the screen. My body does not experience a group in the same way. It recognizes the distant and diluted image of numerous individuals. There is no singular focus, and I do not have meaningful interaction when a group is on the screen.

Of course, I always prefer the physical presence of an individual. I can be able to have a similar experience with one individual on a screen, especially if they are someone I know very well. This is not true for a screened group. A group on a screen may offer a chance for shared information, but screens do not facilitate a common experience for a group.

What does it mean to have a spiritual life? That question comes up directly from time to time. It comes up daily in many indirect ways as people in my world seem to struggle with what it means to be human, what does it mean for us to be alive. There are so many ways of addressing the nagging issue of what it means for me to be alive in this moment, in this day, in this time of life. I constantly make decisions about what to do based on what it means to be alive in this moment, in this time. I act in a way that answers my question of what does it mean to have a spiritual life.

I basically see myself as a spiritual being trying to figure out how to live in a human body. My body seems so obvious. It is what everyone sees as my body presents itself in so many places. My body is what constantly makes its presence felt to me. My body is my obvious presence in the world. It is the obvious connection with other people, with the chair on which I am sitting, with the emerging plants in my garden. My body is always with me and connected to me. It presents itself as a constant source of energy and a means to connect.

My spiritual life is not so obvious, but it is present in everything I do. It permeates every part of my body and saturates every movement I make. My body is so much more easy to experience. All my senses are constantly on call, allowing me to have an experience of the world around and inside me. My senses seem to be the essence of my experience, but there is more. There is an awareness and an experience that constantly lurks beyond my senses. I am a spiritual being traveling in a human body. I am a spiritual being whose aliveness can be experienced in real time as readily as my body experiences sensation.

My body brings energy into every situation. My body experiences anger and my body experiences desire. Experiences of my body can energize and animate my body. The same experienes can energize my deep awareness and animate the less obvious part of me. My spiritual side, when awakened, can embrace all the notions, experiences and energy of my body. My spiritual self, when I am aware, can experience all things present to my body. The touch of a plant or a person can become more than the simple sensation of touch. But I must be aware.

My spiritual life is always with me. However, it requires a different kind of effort and practice for me to be aware of it, to experience it. I am a spiritual being, but that is not always so obvious. I am slowly growing in my ability and my awareness of what it means to live as a spiritual being. It is becoming more and more a part of what my body experiences and what it does. I’m learning what it really mean to live a spiritual life. It is nothing special, but it is becoming part of everything my body does.