The ducklings seem to know us now, but even so they freak out, terrified, every time we pick them up. I get the sense that they understand that we lunge our massive hands at them to transport them to a better environment, in a play pen outdoors, yet knowledge of the payoff to come doesn’t override their fear. Why not? Is it because no matter the heaven they are about to receive, we are plucking them from their moment?
Watching them bicycle the air with their paddle feet as they try to flee my grip brings to mind how the onset of a drug trip is completely frightening and only less so if you can learn to go with the flow. Struggle in the hands of the hallucinogenic molecule and it will be a rough transport—even though you know you signed up for this by willingly ingesting it. Why?
Isn’t it because, like grounded ducks, our sense of normalcy is our moment?
When we talk about living in the now, we tend to acknowledge only the timeless moment in which all time and action are playing. When we talk about transcending time we mean the body’s self-sense dissolving to reveal timeless mind. But there is another “now,” a facsimile created by time, isn’t there? And that moment is the totality of you as time.
When you say, “This is who I am,” “This is how I am,” or “This is how things are,” you’re talking about a facsimile of now in time, an illusion of permanence. Permanence takes action in the form of routine and pattern, and is the now that we live in, the comfort of a false identity because at least it’s an answer; the totality of ourselves in our lives; and we do not want that uprooted even when we ingest substances for the express purpose of uprooting ourselves.
Perhaps Ayahuasca spiritual retreats and plant medicine-based religions are growing in popularity because they provide safe means of exploring impersonal mind by relaxing our false sense of the permanent. If all goes according to plan, you will relinquish self control in a comfortable setting and then come back to “normal” when the medicine wears off. You may or may not be forever changed in some ways (emotionally or with a new knowing), but you will certainly not be transformed out of you. It’s the difference between holding your breath until you pass out and dying. These are not the same no matter how exasperated the person who holds his or her breath for an absurdly long time feels when they wake up.
It’s okay, though. We’re not alone in this. Ducks love pattern, too.