The Difference Between Knowing and Being

I love the observations and insights that come to me when I'm walking, and I often record them. Walking in the rain last week, here's what showed up.


I love the quiet way the rain meets the pine needles of the trail. There's an introduction every moment, as one drop, then the next, collides with the earth. They each find a place to cushion their fall. There's sweetness, a fragrance. No sense of bitterness or wrongness.Your own breath mingles with the breathing of the trees.

And everything is meant.

This can be your moment. When you're here, hearing the finches. This one with a little yellow-orange, sorbet-colored cap--I don’t know what kind he is. Bird, do you know who you are?

Perhaps if I were a bird expert, I'd have a name for it. I could be a scientist and have my definitions down pat. Yet I still wouldn't know anything about being a bird.

This bird will always know more about being a bird than I will. Real knowing is something you can never have, until you’ve connected with being.

Being is the greatest knowing there is.

image credits: top photo - stockfreeimages.com; bottom photo - christi krug