I once had an experience that was difficult to put into words.
I was eating a simple vegan meal.
Nothing dramatic.
No thunderbolt.
No revelation from the clouds.
Just food, sunlight, body, attention.
And then, for a few moments, the boundary between “me” and “the world” seemed less solid.
The vegetables on the plate had grown through sunlight.
The sunlight had become leaf.
Without sun, no leaf.
The leaf had captured the sun’s energy.
The leaf had become nourishment.
The nourishment was becoming my body.
The energy from the sun was becoming my body.
And my body, sitting there in awareness, was not separate from the process.
The phrase that came to me was:
“I am the sun and the sun is me.”
Now, conventionally, that sentence sounds absurd.
Of course I am not the sun.
I am a person.
The sun is a star.
Those distinctions matter.
Without them, we cannot think clearly.
But convention can sometimes become too rigid.
It can make reality look more separate than it is.
Because in another sense, the sentence was not absurd at all.
Every cell in my body was living because of energy from sunlight, directly or indirectly.
Every breath was part of a planetary exchange.
Every mouthful was the result of soil, water, labour, growth, time and energy.
The “I” sitting there was not an isolated object.
It was a temporary pattern inside a much larger pattern.
This is not about becoming mystical in a vague way.
It is about remembering relationship.
We live as though we are separate.
Separate from nature.
Separate from our bodies.
Separate from each other.
Separate from the systems that sustain us.
Then we wonder why we feel exhausted, anxious, lonely or hollow.
Sometimes psychological health requires boundaries.
The ability to say:
This is me.
That is not me.
This is my responsibility.
That is not mine.
But sometimes vitality requires the opposite movement.
The ability to feel connection.
To sense that we belong to something larger than our private concerns.
To remember that our body is not a machine we drag through life.
It is nature, organised for a while as us.
Maybe this is one reason simple things can sometimes heal us.
Sunlight.
Food.
Breath.
Walking.
Gardens.
Animals.
Water.
Shared meals.
A hand on a table.
A moment of gratitude before rushing on.
Not because these things solve everything.
But because they return us to relationship.
With the body.
With the earth.
With time.
With life.
With what is already sustaining us.
Where in your life have you become so separate that you can no longer feel what is supporting you?
And what simple moment might help you remember?
One episode in a series I call: A coffee conversation worth having.
