Once upon a time you were alone in the forest. You thought you were. But birds and insects and all manners of animals sang to you. The wind in the trees waved you on, and the sun peeked through the tall trees and found you. It followed you like a spotlight on a stage. But from where you were, you thought the light flickered.

As you walked on, you came to a clearing where you had a much better view of things. You could see farther. The horizon expanded in front of you, and somehow, you felt smaller, perhaps more lost than when trees towered over you.

You are in the clearing now. All this vast expanse of space disconcerts you. Freedom. So much openness — where do you go now? You are exposed. Somehow the dark forest seemed safer. It covered you. Now there is nothing between you and the sun.

Now you are full-flung in the sun's rays, and your back is bared. You hesitate to look up for fear that you will be dazzled, or besmirched, or go up in flames. Your fears are wasted.

It just is that you are becoming as clear as the clearing you stand in. All the impediments to your pure being and knowing will vanish in the air like puffs of smoke, and you will rise as water from a fountain.

What is it that makes you think the ground is safer? What makes you think that there is only one plane of existence, and that low is more level than high? Or do you search for flatness more than height?

At present, the world is distraught, but you do not need to be. And for that, you must rise higher.

A coal miner digs in the mines for coal. He may even find gold. But to find more, he must nevertheless stay in the mine beneath the earth where he can hardly stand tall. His time in the mine served a great purpose, but now he comes out of the tunnel and reaches for the gold of the sunlight and the silver of the moon.

Expansion is evidenced in what you reach for, not what you get.

Sometimes you feel stretched, elongated, pulled thin. Maybe you are just getting out of yourself. This is an another way to say you are finding yourself. It is not that you lose yourself to find yourself. You lose your past conception of yourself. That has limited you more than any bars on your windows. Even through bars, you can look out. You can see through the bars. You can see through the darkness.

If there is darkness, there is also light. There can be all light, but there cannot be all darkness.

All that is necessary is that you lift yourself up. Admit that there is higher for you to go. You are the only one who can lift you. Others can give you a hand up, but they cannot carry you.

It is all between you and Me. Anything else is merely a flurry of activity. You and I undercut and surmount activity. We cut a swathe through all activity. We wind up with Each Other. We are all there is. The brambles are nothing to Us. You only thought they were. Nothing impedes Us but your mistaken thoughts. They are what get in your way, not the brambles.

There are berries on the brambles.

Sun touches the leaves.

You have the capability to move into the Sun. And that is what you are doing. Stand up tall, and you will reach the Sun sooner. The Sun already reaches you. You are basked in it. Now it is for you to rise to the Sun. Look to the Sun. Let the sun bathe your face and wipe your brow.