Changing Perspective - A Story of an Ant & the Sky

When I was about 12, in the summertime I liked to bring my Barbie dolls into the large backyard where my family lived in Oklahoma, and play pretend.  One day, after some time, I got tired of the dolls and became fascinated with an ant crawling in the grass.  I put the dolls down and laid down on my belly to get a closer look at the ant.  The ant and the blade of grass the ant was crawling up and down looked very small.  But when I got closer, it was as if a whole other world opened up around me. 

What must the world look like from the ant's perspective, I wondered.

The very same small blade of grass and mound of dirt seemed much bigger.  I imagined what it might feel like to be an ant, to walk like an ant walks vertically up and down a blade of grass, among many other blades of grass, each many times bigger than I was. I could feel the cool blade of grass beneath my feet, and the warm sun on my back. The air around me moving gently.  It all seemed quite natural and secure to the ant, who continued to move steadily in the direction it was going.  The mound of ground which included all those blades of grass seemed huge.  The distance from where we were to the fenceline, to the house, seemed very far away.  If I were an ant, it would be a lot of work to travel that far.  And the sky...

I rolled over to look at the sky.  The sky, and the vista of space all around us -- me, and the ant, and the blade of grass -- seemed incredibly vast.  I lost track of time, and began to wonder what it would be like to be a cloud.  

What a blissful day it was.  What a feeling of belonging and connection in my environment.  

This experience I had imagining I was an ant opened something in me - a felt sense of interconnection with access to feel the ant and the blade of grass and the cloud and the sky as a part of me, and that I am also a part of.  That was a gift - that was grace.  

Opening our perspective to new vistas that we can experience in our bodies can feel that way - like opening to a whole new world.  

These days, one of the ways I work with people is helping them shift their consciousness.  While there can be complexity to creating conscious shifts mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and relationally, there can also be a kind of simplicity to it with attuned presence.  

I'm grateful for the privilege I had to be free from danger, safe, and with a yard just beyond my back door surrounded by a quiet neighborhood where I could imagine and wonder and just be.  I'm aware not everyone grows up with that kind of access.  

And wherever we are, whatever state of consciousness we currently inhabit, and whatever our background, shifts are possible.  Like the ant, we start where we are.