How Getting An Alarm Clock Reminded Me Of Our "Oneliness"
In the pursuit to live more slowly and in alignment to my once off grid mountain life, I have recently purchased an alarm clock that aligns to the sun rising, and offers soothing sleeping sounds. This clock is made from wood and has multiple light settings and dimming options. My intention for re-imagining the nightside table alarm clock is wrapped warmly in my efforts to support my nervous system with more tenderness, offer better sleep, and create some distance from my devices emitting radiation.
Many years ago, I sold our flat screen television. We never had cable, so the television was mostly for movies that we watched hooked to the Roku. I bought our family a projector instead, minimizing our exposure to blue light in our home. As a new mother, I wanted to create an atmosphere for our son that was focused on connection, arts, reading and play. I didn’t want the constant noise of a television in the backdrop that I know many grew up with. As a child, I had plenty of quiet space, music, down time and boredom to get creative and to stay connected to each other and ourselves, with minimal television. Similar to my childhood, I wanted movies to be a family event, a shared experience, where we are excited to snuggle, laugh and cry together. I am grateful for this shift. It has fostered a minimal device environment in our home for our family and our son, which helps support his and our entire family’s nervous system.
A few weeks ago, my family and I returned from an off grid mountain camping trip. I was reminded of the impacts living on grid has to our bodies, minds and spirits as I integrated back into the vibration of the city. As the days passed back in the grid system, I began to see how quick and rather easy it is to slip into the attachment to our devices. The layers of just how much is constantly attaching us to our phones, tablets, computers, watches, etc became even more clear — checking emails, texts, orders to be made for work, home, life, follow ups for school, friends, gatherings, paying bills, social media, taking photos, videos, writing, audios, phone calls, news, reading, and even setting an alarm clock.
I have come to learn that I am considered to be the last generation that knows a world without devices. I didn’t have an email until I was 19 years old, and I didn’t really begin to use it until years later. Even then it felt a bother. I sense a part of my primal make up knew the larger entanglement. In high school, I was given a pager, which only allowed numbers (no texting words). We used pay phones with change from cup holders in our cars or buried between papers at the bottom of our backpacks.
The reality is that humanity (unless completely removed from society) will no longer know a world without the pulse of our gadgets. As someone who knew such a world of spaciousness and the ease in mind and body of having a clear pathway to the deep connection to Earth, I can say this truth brings some sadness to my heart. While I know change is inevitable and I practice the Buddhist philosophy of impermanence, there is also a practice of discernment needed so we do not lose our sacred union to great Spirit, to our own innate connection to Nature itself — to ourselves. There really is a judicious awareness we need to tap into around what we absorb and how we are in relationship to the ever evolving “charging” world.
As a mother to a young child in today’s world, and as a counseling practitioner working with clients struggling with addiction, self worth, self love, and a sense of not belonging in the world — of loneliness, I carry this awareness like a flamed torch with great care in the unknown darkness of what will become. I recently learned that before the word “loneliness” emerged in 1800 there was only “oneliness.” I have been pondering the influence of our current world to our connection to our higher Self for decades. A profound way that we can show up to the challenge of distraction and loneliness, to the curled spine of the downward spiral into our devices, is to become a model of how to be in relationship with the changing world that supports our highest good. This is not an easy task. It is also one that we are learning as we evolve.
This leads me back to the alarm clock.
I had been on the fence to purchase the alarm clock for months. Why was I waiting? What was I waiting for? I don’t really know. I think out of the convenience of having an alarm clock on my phone I kept forgetting. The “easy” can also be a distraction in our ramping technological world. Thank goodness for breaks from the systems, for returning to the forest and dirt, the fresh crisp air free from unseen electromagnetic waves surrounding our bodies.
I remember driving back to the city and the closer we got to the wires tracing the roads and filling the sky, the concrete and buildings growing in size, my nervous system contracted, my breath shortened. I felt the energetic influence of the grid lock. It was time to bring a more off grid way of life to my on grid current lifestyle.
I bought the alarm clock.
Then something I didn’t expect to happen did.
As I was setting up the alarm clock, which was a fun endeavor that reminded me of childhood, I went through all the differing sleeping sounds. There were white noise, brown noise, pink noise, lullabies, nature sounds of wind, campfires, thunderstorms, rain, ocean waves, soft waves, and more. But then I stopped on one of them. It was the sound of a heartbeat. I tried to move past it a few times, but kept coming back to listen to it. It enthralled me, captivated me and seemed to transport me.
I went from sitting on my bed reading the instructions to laying down on my bamboo pillow. I closed my eyes and I listened.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
I felt my breath slow. I could feel my own heartbeat shift inside. My shoulders holding from gravity, sank into the green silk fabric wrapped around my pillow. My eyes fell deeper into my skull and my lower jaw unhinged, creating an openness in my mouth I didn’t realize I needed.
My body relaxed and my mind found space from the swarming thoughts of lists, projects and follow ups. Then I began to see an image. At first it was darkness, but then a white light appeared. As it grew I was shown the starting place of our humanity, the womb. I felt the essence of floating peacefully in a warm cocoon, soothed by the consistent beat of the heart, the mother’s heartbeat.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
My entire being relaxed more and more as I listened. I began to sense the feeling my son must have felt inside of me when I was pregnant carrying him. Steady.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
I recalled his little head upon my chest when we would breastfeed. I began to feel the sensations he must have felt hearing and feeling the vibrations my heart so close to his body. Safe.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
Then I recalled how at almost five years old he snuggles in close to my body, wrapping his arms around me, hugging me firmly, and will whisper as if he if he is trying to crawl back into me, “so close, Mama. I love to be so close to you.” I realized as I listened to the heartbeat in that moment, that perhaps the closeness he nestles into is to connect to the comfort of my heartbeat he once knew — that we all once knew so intimately.
I began to feel a vast expansiveness in my mind and a voice called:
“This is what we all have experiences in the womb…this is what we all have known on some level….this is what we all can remember.”
Thump thump. Thump thump.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
I’ve talked about the return to the heart for decades from a view of healing — returning to our own individual heart’s song, our inner wisdom and guiding truth. As I received the medicine of this heartbeat on my alarm clock, a heartbeat outside of my own (and yes, from a device), I was reminded of the collective soothing heartbeat we all have known as our first human experience inside the womb. I could feel the deep rest and reset the heartbeat offers, connecting us to the primordial and sacred comfort, the steadiness and safety of our shared consciousness.
The rhythm of the heartbeat is consistent. It is grounding and provides a trance like state, which is calming. Like the drum in shamanic journeying or the gentle sounds of a soothing voice used in hypnosis or meditation, the heartbeat offers a similar experience, a stimming or soothing effect. It is no surprise that altered states of consciousness are the healing gateway to returning to ourselves. We all began our human journey in the in-between, the cosmic womb. The cosmic womb is a bridge that houses our spirit form to become a human. There within its watery essence, we are lullabied into a trace state of the heartbeat, steady, ever present, and nourishing.
The longer I listened to the heartbeat, the deeper I fell. Though I don’t have personal memories of being in the womb, there was a felt sense my body knew and recalled. The fall into its memory was safe, nurturing and timeless. I couldn’t help but think how the return to our own heart, our own innate true and higher Self is what returns us to the collective heartbeat we all began our human journey with.
That perhaps, in the end, all the unraveling brings us right back to where we started — to the oneliness of our shared consciousness.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
So how do we live in a charged up world that is moving faster than our nervous systems can integrate? I believe it is an on-going conversation led by the wisdom of our higher Self, our discerning intellect and the courage of our hearts to listen to our own innate Nature, returning again and again to our inner guidance and truth.
In Medicine Circle and the online program, Sacred Journey, we continue this ever evolving conversation, practicing together and remembering our “oneliness”, transforming from independence to interdependence, and from being alone to being one in our shared humanity.
As always, thanks for being here.
Take care of you.
Take care of one another.
Much Love,
Kristina Renée
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