Being intoxicated with art, or music,
emotions or ideas
is the gateway to the world of spirit,
to God and other dimensions
where the voice of the soul
speaks…
–the writer in me
Tag Archives: God
There But for the Grace of God, Go I…
Last week I had a near-death-experience.
It had been a tough day. I was on my way home after twelve hours of babysitting my three granddaughters–whom I adore, by the way, but they’re all still in diapers and two of the three were fussy pretty much the entire day.
Anyway, I was driving home and it was dark. I was tired. My back hurt; my knees ached and I was looking forward to getting home and maybe taking a nice, long, relaxing soak in the tub.
For now though, I was stopped at a red light and I knew it would be a long light, so I reached down and inserted a new CD into the player: The Eagles’ “Desperado,” one of my all-time favorites–extraordinary vocal harmonies, and I just love that banjo in “Doolin-Dalton (Instrumental)”. That’s what I was thinking as I hit the play button, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark-colored minivan run up the embankment to my right (I was in the right lane), its headlights suddenly blasting into my windshield, the van itself tilted at such an angle that I was surprised it wasn’t tipping over onto its side and into the car ahead of me. My first thought was “What are they doing? I guess they must have overshot the turn!” (A silly thought to have at a time like that.) But I quickly realized that the minivan’s front panel was dangling from the car, the passenger side was all smashed in and smoke was billowing from under the hood.
Reaching for my cell phone, I quickly dialed 911 to report the accident. People were jumping out of their cars all around me and running to check on the occupants of the van. It was all happening so fast!
After completing my phone call, I got out of my car, walked toward the minivan and asked if everyone was okay. A middle-aged man said, “Yes, everyone’s okay.” So not wanting to get in the way, I got back into my car and proceeded to merge with the now-bunching-up traffic to my left. It felt like time was standing still. I could not even make myself turn my music back on. I needed it quiet. It was similar to how I felt when I got the phone call that my dad had died–but nowhere near the intensity of that moment–shock, I guess you’d call it and an attempt to process the reality of something unexpected and horrible.
By the time I was able to move and I passed through the intersection, that’s when I saw the other car–a silver sedan smashed up pretty bad and sitting diagonally in the middle of the intersection. I said a silent prayer for all those involved, hoping that no one was seriously hurt. From the looks of both cars, it could have gone either way.
As I proceeded home, I had to pull over several times in order to allow firetrucks, ambulances and police cars to get through, and as I waited for them to pass, I realized that my hands were shaking and my heart was pounding. I was shook up for those who were involved in that wreck, and grateful that I was the third car back at that intersection, instead of the first. Had I been in the first car, I would have been hit. Maybe killed.
When I got home, I tried to pretend that it was just another day and that that accident didn’t really affect me, so I logged onto my computer and was instantly inundated with the problems of other people that had somehow suddenly become my responsibility. It was too much.
I got up, poured myself a glass of merlot, then closed my eyes and just breathed. And in that moment, all those problems and the 80 gazillion other critical things I needed to deal with RIGHT NOW suddenly became insignificant. I was alive. I was still breathing. What did it matter if so-and-so might think me rude because I’d forgotten to return his or her phone call or email? Or that that businessperson whom I had hoped would give me an interview turned me down because I was not a writer for People Magazine? And so what if there was still chocolate ground into the carpet from Halloween because I hadn’t had time to clean the house this week?
I sat back in my chair, and felt the wine slide down my throat–smooth and warm, and I thought about how lucky I was to have such beautiful grandchildren. Even though they’re fussy sometimes, I am so blessed to be able to see them often and to have a family and friends who love me, a roof over my head, food to eat and everything else I have. Because like life for those people involved in that accident, everything can change in an instant. You can be going about your day the way you’ve done for the past 20 years or more and all of a sudden something unexpected happens and changes everything in ways you never could have prepared for. What then? You deal with it. You have to. But maybe next time you’ll be a little more patient with that eldery woman who took forever to get through the line at the grocery store last week when you were in a hurry to get that special dinner on the table for your sweetie. Or maybe next time you won’t be quite so quick to judge your neighbor because he has tattooes or because he dresses differently than you, or has too many kids or not enough kids or believes in a different god or no god but is still doing his best to be a good person just the same.
Because maybe, just maybe, there won’t be a next time.
Pat’s Guest Appearance on “Positively Incorrect Radio” with Scott Cluthe Now Online
Listen to the podcast from Dec. 6, 2011 on “Postively Incorrect Radio,” as host Scott Cluthe and Pat Walker discussed Pat’s new book, “Dance of the Electric Hummingbird,” focusing on Pat’s escape from an abusive marriage in her early 20s, to–as Cluthe put it, “a rock and roll mama” befriended by rock star Sammy Hagar–and the roles that mysticism, religion, sex, and God played in Pat’s incredible journey to self-realization.
To listen, please click the photo above.
We would love to hear your feedback. How did you like the podcast? What questions would you have asked?
Thank you for your continued support.
Semantics
Oct. 21, 2009The other day, a man I’d never met before asked me what my book was about.
“It’s supernatural; it’s spiritual—about a mystical experience I had in the middle of a concert that changed my life. It also involves a famous rock star…” I started to say.
As I spoke, I noticed that the man, an older gentleman dressed in a biker’s vest with the word “VET” sewn onto it, was attempting to disguise the look of disappointment spreading across his face.
“Supernatural is different than spiritual,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and backing off a bit.
“No, I had an out of body experience…” I continued, and this time as I tried to explain it to him, I used the word “God.”
His eyes lit up and he moved closer. “God isn’t supernatural; God is natural. He is everything.”
“Oh yes! It’s everything!” I grinned, feeling joy moving into all my internal organs.
The man went on to tell me that he too, had had an out of body experience. “The Holy Spirit came to me as I lay dying in a hospital bed.”
“How did you know it was the Holy Spirit?” I asked him. “Did you see it?”
He gestured an arc around himself. “No, I felt it all around me.”
He explained that the Holy Spirit told him it wasn’t his time to die yet and it would show him what to do to keep on living. “I was completely at peace and felt the presence of God,” he said. And the more he talked, the more I realized that that was exactly what had happened to me six years ago in Cabo.
When I told him the details of my experience, he suddenly became very excited about my book and wanted to know more.
What had initially misled him was my use of the word “supernatural,” which obviously had a different meaning to him than it does to me.
Semantics.
Merriam-webster.com defines “semantics” as: “the language used to achieve a desired effect on an audience, especially through the use of words with novel or dual meanings.”
How then, do I get past semantics so as not to mislead or confuse people? According to the experts, I’m supposed to be able to describe my book in one or two sentences. Yeah, right. It takes me a paragraph at best. Maybe I just haven’t found the right words yet, or maybe it’s just the nature of my subject, I don’t know.
If I say my book is spiritual, or that it involves God, it gives the connotation that it’s religious and some may be turned off by this, as rock ‘n’ roll and religion don’t necessarily blend well.
If I use the words “supernatural,” “paranormal,” “mystical,” “metaphysical,” or “psychic,” some may immediately assume that my book is occult in nature and look at me as if I’ve lost my marbles.
If I say it’s about a famous rock star, people might think it’s a shallow account of a fan gushing over a celebrity. Even I wouldn’t read a book like that!
So how do I describe ecstasy in God, a supernatural force, psychic experiences, out-of-body realms, otherworldly connections, rock stars, self-realization and the utmost joy, in one or two sentences in order to convey the fact that I am describing one thing that encompasses all of these? These components are the means that led me to my personal definition of what God is—the realization of the ultimate perfection, the ultimate everything. It also matters not if one believes in God—self-realization is available to everyone.
Since my experience, I’ve met several people, the Veteran included, who have told me that they too, have had experiences similar to mine. And I’ve read a lot of books that say this too: “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch, “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle to name a few.
These people all describe the same feelings and emotions involved in their mystical moment and many say it changed their lives.
Author Maxwell Steer writes:
“Mystical experience may be defined as being an ‘infinite intimacy’, a sense of fulfilment in which the subject is simultaneously aware of the limitless nature of the Universe and yet of hir (sic) intimate relationship to a force sensible as an identifiable personality. It is simultaneously the experience of everything and nothing, of knowing all yet being empty, of hearing within silence all sound. Different religious traditions identify this state individually – nirvana, mushín, Shambhala, Buddhahood, mystical union, alchemical marriage, shekinah – yet it can be seen as a common goal of all esoteric teaching, an experience of oneness beyond the world of duality. It need not even occur in a religious context. To me those very rare moments of total understanding that can arise in connection with works of art are clearly in the same category – that clarity of vision and sense of contact with some archetypal personality… some archetypal source of consciousness that transcends rational knowledge.”
And while we report similar experiences, each person’s manner of expressing what happened to them is slightly different, because each person is unique in their perception of the world around them. It’s like describing the color purple—one person might call it “lilac,” while another says “lavender,” and another expresses it using the word “plum” or “violet.”
But it’s still the same color.
There’s a Supernatural Force…
Nov. 22, 2009
…that desperately wants me to tell my story, DANCE OF THE ELECTRIC HUMMINGBIRD.
I’m absolutely positive about this because my post, “Semantics,” dated Oct. 21, 2009, almost didn’t get published, for the same reason I keep working so hard at DANCE OF THE ELECTRIC HUMMINGBIRD. I’m trying to cross all my “t’s” and dot all my “i’s” and bending over backward to get everyone’s approval every step of the way—I’m so afraid of offending anyone.
But I believe our interpretations of the events in our lives and the meaning of those events is something that is strictly personal and comes to us in a way that’s unique to each person’s way of understanding. What’s right for one isn’t necessarily right for someone else. This goes for tastes in food and living conditions as well as spiritual beliefs.
Just when I’d been hesitating to publish “Semantics,” I received an update from the founder of the Northern Colorado Writer’s Association, of which I am a member. Kerrie Flanagan’s blog featured a gifted writer by the name of Laura Resau, who wrote about how shamanism played a major role in a lot of her books. Laura said shamans believe that their power comes from a divine source and this power translates itself into words or stories, much like what writers have to do. She also provided a link to a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the immensely successful EAT, PRAY, LOVE.
In Gilbert’s video, she spoke about the insecurity writers have, and the need for us to learn to distance ourselves from the world’s criticism.
She mentioned that in his last interview before his death, the famous author Norman Mailer said: “Every one of my books has killed me a little more.”
Wow, can I relate. Each and every revision of my book has killed me a little more too—how much do I reveal? How much do I leave out because it’s too personal? What are people going to think of me?
One of my favorite songs is “Pages,” by 3 Doors Down. It’s about spilling one’s heart out for the world, bleeding for the eyes of the public and wondering if it’s all really worth it. But as artists, we have no other choice, we can’t not do it, that’s what makes the process so painfully wonderful.
So as I listened to Gilbert talk about creating distance between herself and other people’s reactions to her writing, I was even more surprised when she said that one’s art isn’t the result of the artist at all, but the result of some sort of spiritual “being” speaking through the artist. Now this may sound odd, but it makes perfect sense to me. I too, have felt its presence from the beginning of my writing this book. I’ve called it a supernatural force—and it is. It has directed all of this from the start. Perhaps it even directed me to Gilbert’s video, because it “just happened” to come along when I needed it most.
Gilbert described writing as: “the utter madding capriciousness of the creative process… that does not always behave rationally and in fact can sometimes feel downright paranormal…”
Oh yes.
She said it makes more sense to believe that “the most extraordinary aspects of your being… were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along, when you’re finished, to somebody else…” than to bear the entire egotistical burden that the artist is solely responsible for the end result.
Believing in divine influence was readily accepted in ancient times, so where did we get the notion in these contemporary times, that we are more than mere vessels to deliver the message? How many authors, singers, songwriters, poets, actors have attributed their talent to God or other supernatural forces?
Lots.
For me, it all comes down to trusting in that force to take me where I’m supposed to go. If I can keep believing in that, and according to Elizabeth Gilbert, the notion that it is responsible for what comes out of my pen or my keyboard, if something wonderful is gained by others because of my effort, that’s the greatest possible accomplishment! And if not, I can always blame the outcome on that force: “Damn! You really messed up this time, didn’t you dude?”
I like this idea! It takes the pressure off of me to try and please everyone. 🙂
Even Thoreau said: “Say what you have to say, not what you ought!”
¡Olé!
(In case you’re interested, here’s a link to hear “Pages”)
The Healing Power of Music and Mysticism
Nov. 29, 2009
If my mammogram had been normal, I wouldn’t have found myself in the tiny room with the radiologist that day. As she brought up the round white cloud on the black screen, I sat erect in my chair. Slouching would have been like admitting defeat.
“You have an abnormal spot on your mammogram,” she announced. “We need to do surgery.”
There’s a lot of cancer on both sides of my family, so I was scared. I wondered if I might lose my breast or if it would be deformed from having tissue removed.
As I scheduled the surgery, I prayed. I also contacted my friends and asked them to send positive thoughts.
Then something remarkable happened.
I have a friend who practices Sufism. He’s also an incredible professional drummer. We’d lost touch over the years and I’d tried contacting him, but never had any luck.
For the past two weeks, though, I had a feeling I should try reaching him again.
I sent an email and he responded, inviting me to his concert the following night!
After the show, I told him I’d been having some health problems.
“Do you have any friends who can do a healing with you?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Would you be open to that kind of thing?”
“I’d be open to just about anything at this point.” I felt a sense of comfort even then.
He introduced me to several people and told them to arrange a healing circle dance with me. A week later, I received an email telling me where and when the dances were held and that Sufi master Shabda Kahn would be making a rare appearance at the next dance.
I went.
Entering the building, I became instantly aware of the fact that I was wearing jeans and a Harley-Davidson shirt while everyone else wore dresses or nice slacks. This made me want to make myself very small or invisible so no one would notice me.
As the dances began, the musicians—my friend with his djembe (drum), a woman on acoustic guitar, another on flute, and the Sufi master playing a round, stringed instrument, sat in the center. Three rings of people surrounded them.
Shabda demonstrated the first dance and gave us the words to sing. Holding hands, we moved in a circle.
Although most of the words weren’t in English, the song was about our connection to God, the Divine within.
At first I felt as if I’d been transported back to the ‘60s: women in flowing skirts, people of all ages and colors holding hands, dancing and chanting a melody of peace and love. But as the dance progressed, I saw that my fellow dancers’ eyes were filled with kindness and I felt myself letting go: melting into the music that washed through me like water through a sieve. When I’d stopped concentrating so hard, I found that my body “remembered” the movements on some primal level.
After the first dance, while everyone closed their eyes and stood motionless, I felt energy pulsing in and out of my body in all directions and I experienced a tremendous amount of love and acceptance. It became increasingly apparent that the initial disapproval I had encountered upon entering the room had come not from those around me but from myself. No one there was judging me. My soul began to settle within itself.
When the dances ended, my friend suggested I tell Shabda about my surgery.
“Uh, okay.” I felt self-conscious all over again. I wondered how one was expected to behave around a Sufi master, a person whose superior spiritual background I had no clue about. All I knew was that everyone was bowing to him and yet, he looked just like an ordinary man to me.
My friend approached the master and sat down beside him. He waved me over. We sat facing one another as I told the master about my upcoming surgery. He said some kind words and told me that he would think positive thoughts for me, then the three of us joined hands while the two men began to chant.
“You can join in, if you know it.” The master smiled reassuringly.
But I had never heard these words before, so I sat with my eyes closed, trying to absorb every hypnotic syllable, every inflection of the foreign words. The sound of their voices soothed my soul as I was swept into the warm embrace of MYSTICISM AND MUSIC. I suddenly felt empowered.
On the day of my surgery, the radiologist scheduled to do the procedure was a different doctor than the one who had first interpreted my results. Before taking me into the operating room, the new doctor ordered more mammograms. He then called me into his office to discuss the films.
“If this is what the other radiologist was concerned about, I don’t see it,” he said pointing at the screen. “This is benign. There’s no reason to do unnecessary surgery.”
Was it simply a matter of two different doctors’ interpretations of the results? Or did the healing circle dances I’d attended days before, along with the prayers of my friends from many different beliefs cure me?
I choose to believe in the healing power of love.
SIDEBAR: Dances of Universal Peace are a means to revivify our love and joy, and integrate ourselves with the power of Peace through the practice of meditative circle dances and walks, with singing and chanting of Divine Names and sacred phrases from many spiritual traditions.
The Dances are all-denominational and everyone is welcome. For more information, please visit http://www.riverrock.org/peace/index.html or http://www.dancesofuniversalpeace.org/
Other Worlds
May 31, 2009
A friend I hadn’t seen in over a year dropped by unexpectedly today. He is a highly intelligent, scientific-minded person. We talked about being morally responsible to our fellow human beings because we are all connected to one another.
He said his wife had a quote taped to their refrigerator that read: “We’re here not to see through one another, but to see one another through.”
“Ah, yes, I believe that too,” I said, familiar with the quote.
During our conversation, he mentioned some astonishing discoveries made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST):
“They pointed the telescope into black space, where they couldn’t see any light at all. And what the telescope showed were 100 billion galaxies. One hundred billion galaxies they had no idea existed!”
I checked on NASA’s website to learn more about it:
“…in 1999 the Hubble Space Telescope estimated that there were 125 billion galaxies in the universe, and recently with the new camera HST has observed 3,000 visible galaxies, which is twice as much as they observed before with the old camera. We’re emphasizing “visible” because observations with radio telescopes, infrared cameras, x-ray cameras, etc. would detect other galaxies that are not detected by Hubble. As observations keep on going and astronomers explore more of our universe, the number of galaxies detected will increase.”
Over 125 billion galaxies? I found it odd that earlier in the day I had written the following in my notebook:
“There are times when I seem to see the world through different eyes, as if there is a transparent film coating my field of vision and everything looks different. But it’s more than that. What I’m perceiving with my eyes doesn’t just appear different, it also feels different, as if this transparent film I’m looking through is part of me and yet separate. It feels like it’s hovering above the world, above the physical me that’s here being the observer. This ‘extension’ of me is floating above my immediate consciousness and telling me to quit taking everything so seriously because it’s all just a game anyway. And what we are meant to do with this life is enjoy the game. Suddenly it doesn’t matter what I eat, what I drive, how I look or where I live because it’s all impermanent. It’s icing on the cake.
And then I wonder if in those moments, what I’m really seeing is a higher intelligence or another form of intelligence watching me, observing me and sending this awareness back to me because it feels so different from how I normally feel. This idea causes me to wonder about all the unseen forces that exist in our universe and beyond. I know they’re there. I’ve seen evidence of them but never anything provable.
I wonder how many forms of ‘life’ are out there, how many are part of our known world and what do they have to do with me? I know that some of them have something to do with me because they’ve made themselves known in so many ways. And if they’re making themselves known, they must have a reason to do so.
I also believe that they are part of God, the Divine plan and the hub of our connectedness.
Then without realizing it, my mind slips back into it’s familiar awareness and once again I am being fooled into thinking it’s imperative that my shoes match my purse so I don’t look silly when I go out, or that I must contain my excitement about things—behave myself—and not draw attention to myself. I fall so effortlessly back into that mode, the one that auto-pilots my life. And when I find myself returning to that way of perceiving things, what I see through my eyes feels as if a camera lens has been pulled back from revealing a close-up to showing a wide-angle image that has gone completely out of focus.
I realize it’s important to stay grounded in reality because one has to function in society… but there is so much more out there in our vast universe than we have any clue about.”
And now, when I look at the photos of galaxies captured by the HST, I see that the universe is even more vast than I thought. The galaxy in which we live is but one in over 125 billion galaxies. I can’t begin to fathom that information. If we think we are the only form of life amid that unfathomable number, we are kidding ourselves. And if we are connected to one another and to this earth as I believe we are, it stands to reason that we are also connected to the other forms of life out there and to those beyond the boundaries of our limited mortal minds, forms of Being that blur the distinction between body, mind and spirit.
Was it mere coincidence that I wrote about this earlier today and my friend just happened to show up and offer scientific reinforcement of my thoughts? Or was my mind predisposed to this conversation because of what I’d written earlier? Before my mystical experience, I would have been inclined to believe that and not questioned its relevance. And yet, I do believe we draw to us that which we are thinking about, but that’s another discussion.
Since so many strange things have happened to me from the moment my mystical journey began, I no longer believe in coincidence. I now believe that everything happens for a reason. However, my ego mind continues to lurk on the sidelines like an angry parent whose son has wrongly been penalized in a hockey game. In this case, it’s screaming that this notion of attracting what we need just by putting it out there to the universe is ludicrous.
But my heart knows better.
Photo Credits: www.nasa.gov
A Gift Of Love: Deepak & Friends Present Music Inspired By The Love Poems Of Rumi
April 23, 2009
It never ceases to amaze me how things have fallen into place since my mystical experience at Sammy Hagar’s concert in 2003. I take one step and the next already seems laid out for me. I can hardly not stay on this path. It’s as if the Universe has dictated its certainty since longer than the concept of time.
Last December, I happened upon this CD–selected writings of Rumi read aloud by celebrities such as Madonna, Deepak Chopra, Blythe Danner, Demi Moore, Goldie Hawn, Debra Winger and others. Rumi was a 13th century poet, Sufi and mystic who composed over 30,000 amazing verses.
As I listened to the online sample of this album, I heard Demi Moore’s beautiful voice reading one of Rumi’s poems, “Do You Love Me?”
The words took my breath away. My intellectual mind told me that the poems were written by a man for his lover, but when I listened, the words perfectly described the mystical experience I’d had years earlier. They sounded like something I wish I would have written to illustrate the connection with God I’d felt so fully.
Where does God end and lover begin?
God does not end. God is the ultimate lover, as my experience was the ultimate high. I saw profoundly in that moment, that love, lover and Beloved are one.
God is a constant that permeates and comprises each grain of sand, each human being and each note of music.
In the following video, Jared Harris reads Rumi’s poem “Looking for Your Face.” It is the best example I can give you of how I felt during my soul’s revelation one hot night in Mexico; my entire being floating in the ecstasy of discovering my truth in the “face” of God:
Video by: DrBillRamos
How Does it Feel to Have a Mystical Experience?
March 28, 2009
Initially I felt a golden liquid light flowing into me—a light that felt as solid and real as a steel girder. I then felt lifted out of my body, pulled by an unseen force higher and higher, until my consciousness was above the room, above the world.
All at once, I understood on a level deeper than I knew I was capable of, that there was no separation between myself and every living and non-living thing of this world and all worlds.
I was an integral component of all the thoughts that were being thought or had been thought forever—backward and forward in time. And there was no such thing as the concept of time.
Pure love, ecstasy and light poured into me. I was submerged in its essence.
The colors of my tangible world seemed dull and grey compared to the colors of the bliss I was experiencing: vibrant, alive and breathing.
I knew that within this ecstasy was a connection to the Divine—to God or whatever term one needs to use. The feeling was all-encompassing. I suddenly understood the meaning of the word ecstasy, which seems to have become misconstrued in our human language.
I realized in a very deep way that God is, as the Sufi say “Love, Lover and Beloved.” And I was.
And I am…
Book Review: “The Shack” by William P. Young
January 26, 2010
I believe there are as many ways to God as there are beings in this universe.
The Shack by William P. Young is about how one man finds God through the atrocity of his young daughter’s murder.
This book reinforces some of the truths I’ve learned on my own journey, primarily the discovery of God in unexpected places and times in our lives.
I also find it interesting that the author mentions music and musicians here, and references James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Moby, Sarah McLachlan, Jackson Browne, Bruce Cockburn and the bands U2, Indigo Girls and Dixie Chicks, to name a few.
Kudos to The Shack for portraying God as alternating between male and female personifications and for depicting God as more than one spiritual entity. For me, these were the book’s shining moments.
I did however, have a few problems with this book. The main issue was that it is a bit too slanted toward Christianity. Although the author goes out of his way to say this isn’t the case, I found some of the concepts confusing. For instance, Young assumes that everyone practices a rite called “devotions.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
I also think that due to the manner in which the story is presented, it excludes a lot of people. Not everyone sees God within the context of Christianity or religion. The Shack makes reference only to The Bible, as if it were the only holy text, whereas there are other books out there that also contain universal truths. Tao Te Ching, for instance, is even older than The Bible.
In any case, this book is written, as all books are, from the author’s perspective, which includes that which he believes to be true and that’s why I forgive these “indiscretions.” There is still a light in this book that will inspire many.
That being said, neither do I think it’s wrong to see God within the context of Christianity or religion. However one discovers God is great. It only matters that you find Him/Her/It/Them–whatever your definition of the Divine may be, and that you realize you are an important part of the Magnificence—that which is in you and also all around you.