I sit on the roof at night and stare into the stars. Is that cliche', because billions of people have done the same over the last million years? Or maybe the momentum of all that focus makes the experience more powerful?

It takes no time before the awareness expands into the Kosmos, and the bewildering sense of scale emerges. Trillions of billions of galaxies, planetary systems. And that's merely the visible dimension of what's 'out there'. A vast expanse of nothing peppered with "some-things". Who knows what Cosmological interiors those some-things are created with? What inner worlds of culture and mutuality do other sentient beings possess? What exotic features are innate to them? Most of Reality is unregistered by human waking awareness, filtered out moment to moment, allowing me to be 'Stuart, typing on a key board', instead of an un-qualifiable Present-Tense Verb. Instead of the Cascade of Is, pouring Self into selves.

As humans we experience things like emotion, spoken language, music as givens. Because they are givens -to us. It can be difficult to imagine sentience isolated from those unique attributes in our example. It's tempting to define self-reflexive awareness (which just means we're aware that we are aware) by its marvelous products. Creativity, imagination, love. Each one is so inter-mingled with what we believe it means to be Alive, Aware. Is that deeply true, or are those things specific to humans? Perhaps they are local (Earthly, anthropomorphic) anomalies? That's why we are One-Of-A-Kind. We emote. We dance, paint, speak thousands of tongues. We make up stories in order to better make sense of our Story. We are unique.

On the other side of that coin, what about us is Universal?

The *content* of our species, our World, this age, is unique. But what is it that holds content? What is it that -itself- has no content, but can host content? Maybe that's the Kosmic Synonym -emptiness. Not just empty space between stars or planets. Also the emptiness on the *inside* of everything. The infinite void, filled and animated with finite qualities. Maybe that Emptiness recognizes itself -literally sees twins- in whatever it meets.

However distinct our local features may be, however singular our attributes, the Emptiness that houses them is One. Emptiness is the native endowment of all that has ever been, is, or will be. The Infinite Synonym is elaborated in an impossible variety of form (with inner and outer characteristics).

Isn't that what is so hypnotizing about staring into space at night? The tension between what the 'I' feels and what the Eye sees? Aren't we challenged to resolve this division of scale? Isn't the -Eye- actually gazing into the spectacle of its very own Dispossessed Self?

Why do we say space is 'out there' as we behold It? Shouldn't that simple assumption -that anything is 'out there'- give us pause?

[The word 'behold' says it all. BE-HOLD. To behold is to be-held. Anyone who doesn't feel that when staring into a sky full of stars is unable to sense their own anatomy]

What fooled us into forfeiting our Self, our birth right? What makes us think those items *in* our awareness (galaxies, stars, planets, emptiness, curious lights, exotic life forms) are somehow less *with-in* us than the other items in our awareness? On a cold night, when I exhale and see a cloud of my breath fog the air, when does it stop being 'my' breath and start being part of the atmosphere 'out there'? Is it possible there are other forms of respiration I may be misunderstanding? Respiration of lungs. Co-mingling through ceaseless inter-penetration with environment. What else respires? What else is breathing, but is perhaps filtered out by the compression of my thinking mind?

The soul?
History?
Ever-increasing concentric spheres of 'We', 'Family', 'Tribe', 'Nation', 'Humanity'?

Do we detect the Over-Soul breathing in and out, performing its Spiritual Photosynthesis? Could I participate in that more fully? Why do we hold awareness over one context and name it *Within* then hold awareness over another and call it *With-out*? When we unlatch the trap door in the back of the mind and let the Light wander, what is there to find but ¿What Is. Infinite Synonym, suffused with ~¿~?~¿~.

Out is the new In.

You can have your self and eat it too. You don't have to stop being Sally-Who-Works-At-The-Bank to resume being Unbounded Eruption of Effulgence. You are Ted-The-Mailman, and also the Unborn-Unmade Presence which inhabits all, but is bound by none. Our humanity; Fragile, ephemeral. Also; Immutable, State-less.

We shouldn't let anyone or anything (including US) trick us into picking one or the other.

No more either / or!
No more either / or!