Umbilical

 

Umbilical: Being a necessary or nurturing link or connection

 

All your limbs, dear, can entwine with a pillar like me and rise and rise and rise until no one on earth can see you anymore, for there is no limit to our height. And any nutrients you needed I could let flow into your roots and stems, giving like some umbilical cord that is attached to my heart.  Hafiz, A Tree You Can Wind Around

 

What if we are connected to God umbilically and like the infant in the womb receiving our lives through the pulse of love from a source greater than ourselves?  At the surface level of consciousness, we tend to think of ourselves as separate beings. This is the egoic part of the self which has limited self-focused view of things. The deeper layers of consciousness cultivated through yoga, prayer, and contemplation we, in contrast, experience our connection to all others in a oneness that is woven through with the infinite source of our being.

 

It is this one source of life, that gives us the first beat of our heart, the first full breath, the first feeling of warmth on the skin.  Our lives remain given to us through each holy breath, each sacred heartbeat.  It is not in our power to make another breath, another beat of the heart.  In this way, we remain umbilically connected to the higher source of power that mysteriously sustains our lives.  As the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton wrote “Our lives belong more to God then they do to ourselves.”  But we forget this in our day-to-day busyness, striving, and longing for pleasure, happiness, comfort. We come to think that our self-willed striving and achieving is what sustains us, that death can be surmounted  We forget that our lives given to us generously with no conditions is a sacred gift.

 

When I experience my umbilical connection to the divine as my life’s source, I feel part of the vast flow of life itself.   I am held by this river of energy which is not of myself and is much greater than myself.  When several times a day my own self-will fails, when I feel lost, abandoned, done in by circumstances, imagining my umbilical connection to God allows me to let go of whatever is already passing and feel the presence of this life force still holding me, still running through me, providing love, sustenance, the giveness of my life..