The Phantom Ring

 

Driving down a road I have never been on before

My hands on the steering wheel

I felt my wedding ring on my finger

Where it had been for a lifetime

Not trusting my eyes

I clenched my left fist

To check if it was actually there

But in a flash

The phantom ring was gone

A physical memory

That came to visit

And take me back ever so briefly

To the sweet days of Us

All that was

Converging with all that is.

 

I have heard stories about amputees experiencing phantom limbs where they feel as if the arm, the leg, the foot – whatever limb is no longer has returned to their body.  This is the only reference I have to ground in the phantom ring experience that dropped me into the past while I was simultaneously present in my life now.  Traveling back to those sweet days of Us, all that was, proved that Us still is, pulsing through my life even though the physical dance is over.  In the depths of me, I have known this, but to have the sensation of a memory come to visit left me weeping tears of awe and gratitude.

There is a rush of infinite energy, a bliss as all that was and all that is converges and fuels our lives with a sense of purpose and meaning beyond our mind’s ability to process.  Our attempt to apply logic strips away the beauty, keeps the depth of experience at bay and won’t allow us to drop into unexplored rooms within us.  The soul, the part of us that is eternal knows and rests in this truth no matter how heartbreaking the human journey which unfolds events that we long to understand but can only be reconciled through the river of wisdom within.  

The invitation this day and this lifetime is to allow our human response to the events of our lives, and ask to see these events from the soul’s perspective, a bird’s eye view of higher wisdom that shines light, illuminating that which we curse and want to wish away.  All the love that lives within each of us, all the love we have exchanged with others lives on in the infinity of life where we are whole.  There are capsules of linear time that we can language which stay with us through our memories of a lifetime.  But there is a sacred dance that never ceases living on even after our physical dance has finished.  In this knowing, the music plays on.  Hold the sweet days of what was as you hold the sweet days of what is.