A Word Like Light:

TERRITORY 

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

 

     For most of my 83 years, I've usually thought of the 'territory' of my life as being very small - 'tiny' might be the better word. I saw myself as a miniscule occupant of a very small territory called 'my life'. My 'home' was my physical body and the various material homes and neighborhoods where I was living. However, over the last 30-or-so years, I've sometimes seen how wrong I was, and how truly vast the territory of life - including 'mine' - is. The fact is, I dwell in a territory that is limited only by my thoughts. The locality where I live is actually the boundless and everlasting universe itself, and my surroundings extend from the small lanes near our home out to the boundless stars. My neighborhood, I now know, includes all oceans and mountains and cities and forests. I dwell in an indescribable and immeasurable setting of countless towns and cities and countries and planets and stars. My territory truly has no borders, and it's the same territory owned by all doves and squirrels and spiders and fellow humans. Nothing fences me in but my own thoughts. I am as free as the wind, and what I want to do now is pause at the end of this sentence ... and smile the largest smile possible, one that extends from here to there to everywhere.