And Then Dignity Returns: A Chapter from my new book

Hi friends, 
It's been a while since my last book came out - about a year and a half and 5,000 lifetimes in one.
Sometimes you have to experience first and write later. All the scribbles and notes are finally forming into my fourth book. Instead of telling you anymore, I'll just share a chapter of which I am actually pleased with - my own harshest critic. Thanks so much for taking the time, being here, you know - all of it. 
With love for all of it --
Lauren

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And Then Dignity Returns.  
A Story About Staying on Earth. 

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The human never becomes realized. 
 
Instead, I found my humanity woven tightly and beautifully into the Tapestry of Self somewhere along the I Am That I am highway – you know, the one with no exits, no services and no turnarounds. 
 
However, even in its magnificence as a glowing bead of goodness, in the grand kaleidoscope of Self, humanity never transforms into some sort of super human walking on water. In fact, the experience of embodiment would never be reduced to a cartoon version of mastery. 
 
While the human embraced by the Infinite Eternity of the I Am being-ness for the perfection of its beautiful imperfections never transforms, it does experience something new, a dignity in the human experience. And once the curtain closes on the realization as an act in a play, and One has chosen to stay, the realization is what brings dignity to the human.
 
I once said realization is but a grain of sand, and embodiment is the whole beach. What I meant was realization is the grain of sand, that when activated through both human experience and conscious awareness, lights up every kernel of sand across the entire beach of Self. To stay and experience this magnificent transfiguration, well, that’s what I call embodiment. 
 
Accepting the Caterpillar on the Hungry Planet. 
 
The caterpillar is one of the most voracious eaters out there. As an organism, the hungry caterpillar will devour every plant in its path. How hungry are caterpillars exactly? 
 
Imagine a seven-pound newborn child consuming 1,400 pounds of formula in a two-week period. Commercial butterfly breeders report each Monarch caterpillar can easily defoliate an entire one-gallon milkweed plant–consuming 175 – 200 leaves per caterpillar–before enclosing to the chrysalis stage.
 
I live as a local on a tourist beach. I often watch in total awe as the caterpillar families – numbers in the thousands – descend upon the beach on Spring break or a holiday weekend. 
 
They come to the beach and consume – food, alcohol, natural resources – and then eliminate – soiled baby diapers, copious trash, dog waste, and injured sea life – are left in mass quantities as they pack their caterpillar cars up and drive back to their caterpillar homes. 
 
It used to drive me mad. I’d spend Monday mornings after a holiday weekend on the beach cleaning up after them. Cussing and spitting the whole way. Life got a lot easier, when I accepted a caterpillar for what it truly is – a soul on a journey, doing its best with the consciousness available to it. 
 
The hungry planet will always be looking for its next meal, and sovereignty meant I only had responsibility for one caterpillar and that was me. In doing so, in accepting the caterpillars for what they were – hungry beasts who would eventually transform – I was able to accept the undignified part of myself – my humanity – and allow forgiveness for the insatiable hunger for energy outside myself that drove me through a long cycle of lifetimes. 
 
Butterflies, on the other hand, have one of the lightest touches on the earth. Sticking to a liquid diet, the butterfly likes to gently drink the nectar of plants, fruits and flowers, through a straw-like structure, never destroying anything, but rather being an important part of the ecosystem. However, the butterfly would never emerge if that caterpillar did not fatten itself up first. 
 
A Story About Staying.
 
I turned the engine over on my old rusty Toyota Tacoma as I was heading out for a surf with my dog the other day, and the check engine light clicked on. Normally, I’d ignore such things, but I am about to drive down to my casita in Mexico for the winter. 
 
I called the Toyota dealership and made an appointment. Knowing humans operate in linear time, I packed a book and a snack for Ollie and me anticipating a wait in the service center. 
 
I arrived at our appointment smiling and connecting deeply with each person we talked to in the check in process and, per usual, meeting with strangers in the waiting area, smiling, conversing and answering the many questions about Ollie, who wears his service dog vest in these situations. 
 
I learned about one woman’s German Shepard named Precious, and that when she went anywhere, she carried her Bible to read. 
 
One man told me of his bus trip through Mexico in the 70s, and I listened intently. I was not feigning interest; I was interested. These are the caterpillars at rest, taking a break from devouring the house they live in. 
 
People - at their core - are kind, caring and loving beyond words. I choose to focus on these people and these parts, because I know as I do – it is changing the makeup of the fabric of the collective Earth consciousness. 
 
Those who still scold and correct caterpillars for simply being who they are; well, they too are changing the fabric of the collective consciousness with their fear, anger, and resistance. That’s their choice. I have mine. They have theirs. All is always well. 
 
After about two hours, I realized no one had reported back to me the problem, the reason for the light to come on. The man at check in said the mechanics were simply going to run a quick test. 
 
Big dealerships like these – as well as airports and other high traffic human consumer areas – are undergoing big changes in the world right now. 
 
This is one of the spaces on Earth where the jobs of humans are starting to be run by computers, by machines. However, mostly, the computers feel more like managers and the humans involved feel more like the workers reporting to their new manager – one called artificial intelligence. 
 
I walked up to the counter with Ollie and asked the manager the status of my car, what did the test results say. When I saw his face, I could tell my car had been parked and sitting there the whole two hours past appointment time, but I waited for him to go fake check it. 
 
“If the car has not been touched, please just pull it around, sir, and I will go elsewhere. I understand your situation, but I will not be treated as a number, and I will find somewhere to go where I am treated as an individual human. Thank you.”
 
The manager nodded, and the guy behind him – who worked there as well – silently clapped for me, smiling, and giving me the thumbs up. When his manager walked away, he said, “Good for you. I’d do the exact same thing.”
 
We shared a smile and a laugh. 
 
I was not angry. I honestly had nothing better to do as the waves were not suitable for surf that morning. My humanity could have sat there all day, reading my book and talking, but there is something new happening: the longer I stay, the stranger it gets, which is actual fun – not of the human variety pattern repetition kind. 
 
There’s this character – for lack of a better term – who has emerged in the totality of this new life. The character has a quality, yet it is not something that can be described as personality nor identity for it is not fixed but fluid. 
 
Wisdom is not gained from experience yet comes forth in an instantaneous moment before the human can even think or reason. Wisdom doesn’t even feel like wisdom, and intelligence beyond any sort of mind capacity feels more relevant here. 
 
As I speak to the manager, the words come from the space between the opinion-less, time-less, gravity-less I AM being-ness and the human who gave up caring about such things along time ago.
 
It’s not the silent whisper of the I Am.
 
It’s not the song of the soul. 
 
It’s not any human voice. 
 
It’s not even the intolerant master. 
 
It’s all of the above AND it’s none the above. It’s something New. 
 
As I was pondering this, the manager pulled my Tacoma up to the customer door, hanging his head in shame and apologizing to me. It’s not his fault; he’s just a spoke in the wheel of the machine. Ollie and I got into the car and drove off. 
 
I cranked the stereo up, listening to Travis Tritts, “It’s a Great Day Be Alive,” lit a cigarette and cruised back to island. 
 
With my totality and this new character, I sang along with Mr. Tritt.
 
“And it's a great day to be alive
I know the sun's still shining
When I close my eyes
There's some hard times in the neighborhood
But why can't every day be just this good
Sometimes it's lonely, sometimes it's only me
And the shadows that fill this room
Sometimes I'm falling, desperately calling
Howling at the moon, ah-ooh, ah-ooh”
 
Ollie even howled on cue in the song, which left me beaming – a smile that didn’t only reach the edges of my consciousness but also touched on every corner of the world where a spark of consciousness could be found. 
 
How I met a butterfly named Skip. 
 
All of this occurs in an infinite now, so written in present tense. 
 
The light is still on in the Tacoma, so I drive to an automotive parts store and ask the gentleman at the counter if he could run his magic diagnostic test on my car. 
 
The one the dealership wanted to charge $139.99 for, but only after waiting all day in a herd of cows or caterpillars chewing or as a number on a screen in the wired box of electric intelligence. No dignity can be found here. 
 
“Of course, I can. No charge.” 
 
He steps outside and asks me if he could pull his facemask off because it’s too damn hot for such things. We both rip our masks off and look for the outlet that the machine must plug into. The sun is bearing down and the late afternoon heat seems to be coming from the ground in waves.  
 
After some fumbling and fiddling, the man looks me in the eyes – individual to individual – and says it’s nothing life threatening but a small leak in the emissions. No biggie. 
 
The lovely woman in the store gives me the number of a mechanic in town, and I call him to make an appointment for the next morning. 
 
I know what some of you readers are thinking – I thought this book was about the magical holy grail of embodied realization. Well, it is. The magic truly is in the mundane. Hint: None of this is about a car. 
 
The next morning, I pull into Skip’s shop – an unmarked building on the mainland side of the ferry ride. Not having any expectation, I take stalk. I am a detail-oriented observer. I always take a deep breath before I talk, and I watch the person talking to me not just listening to words, but looking at body language and feeling what level of depth they are willing to share with me. 
 
I always start with the environment. There’s no line in the shop. No sign. No take a number. No computer check in. The space is spotless. One could eat off the floor. Not your typical mechanic. There are no broke down cars piled up outside the shop’s door. It’s a get shit done kind of place, I notice in delight. 
 
Skip introduces himself to me and Ollie, making direct eye contact with us both. He pulls the car around and gets to examining things. I take a seat at a table. Ollie lays down, always so patient and forever well-behaved and always conscious of reading his situation and reacting appropriately. 
 
Have you ever noticed dogs are a direct reflection of their owner’s imbalances? Ollie was not always this perfect. 
 
After a short while, Skip confirms what was suspected by a few people I consulted with – nothing to stop me from diving but a small problem with the emissions. We talk and bounce back solution ideas in a creative manner, coming up with fixing it in a few months. Skips going to do some research on it. 
 
I notice Skip is a technology guy. He’s got fancy computers and gadgets all around.  I can tell immediately the machines work for him; he doesn’t work for the machine. Skip is no spoke in a wheel. He is the wheel in his own life. 
 
And, as he’s running a test on the Tacoma, we have an opportunity to talk. 
 
 
Skip’s lived all over. Hong Kong. Virginia. One day he caught a wild hair and decided to move to Mexico, but when he landed in the beach area here in South Texas he stopped. 
 
Skip doesn’t need to work for money, but like me doesn’t like to sit around or small talk. He kayaks the areas nature preserves and carries a fishing pole so he doesn’t stick out and blends into his environment. He has no desire to catch fish but to watch the birds and sit in the peace the kayak floating in endless waters affords. 
 
Skips walks easy on the earth. His caterpillar days are over. I see him in his kayak, taking in the nectar of the beauty before him, never destroying anything in his path. Skip is a butterfly. 
 
I smile in delight at this lovely encounter, and then it’s time to leave. 
 
I pull out my check book to write Skip a check for the hour and a half we spent together on the creative solution. I check my phone for the time because it seemed as no time had passed at all while I was supposedly waiting. 
 
“No charge, Lauren,” he says. “I only charge when I actually fix something.” 
 
Oh, right. Skip is not a hungry caterpillar on a hungry planet anymore. I tuck my check book back into my bag. 
 
“It was a real pleasure meeting you and Ollie,” he adds. 
 
“The feeling is mutual,” I respond out the car window before I turn the radio up, and Ollie and I drive off into the great beyond. 
 
Skip has shown me something. Dignity is not dead.

It is found as the butterfly makes its way from flower to flower, taking only what it needs and adding its infinite beauty everywhere. 

I sigh, almost in relief but more like joy. I hear the new character say:

"And then dignity returns."