Spirit and Medicine Series Part 3: The Oneness of All Things
The ultimate state of health…how do we get there?
It’s easier than you think.
Why do people love to watch the sun rise and set?
What’s so special about sitting on the beach, watching the rhythmic waves crash onto the sand?
How does one describe the magnetic group resonance experienced at concerts, dances, and ceremonies?
Why do people say they’ve ‘been touched by the hand of God’ at church?
Why did LSD sweep the nation in the 60’s and 70’s? And why is there a wide variety of psychedelics sweeping it again now?
What makes an orgasm so incredible?
The answer to all these questions is that they describe moments in the human experience, outside of our familiar consciousness, that help us recognize the Oneness of all things.
It’s also called the divine order (1).
Picture a fish in the ocean. They don’t think of the water any differently than we think about air. Still, from the outside, we can appreciate connectedness to the fish in the ocean. There’s the saying, “A rising tide helps all boats,” which demonstrates that it’s the tide unifying all life through the Oneness of the ocean.
I was reading a great book, Where Spirit Touches Matter by Mel Friedman DO. He talks about a Jerry Garcia quote that is so significant to his practice that he made it into a poster and hung it on the back of his office. Every day, it’s within sight while he works. It stuck with me too because I also feel like it’s the perfect description of the great elusive Oneness.
“It’s like when you’re driving down a road past an orchard, and you look out and at first all you can see is just another woods, a bunch of trees all jumbled up together, like there’s no form to it. It’s chaos. But then you come up to a certain point and suddenly – Zing! Zing! Zing! – there it is, the order, the tree all lined up perfectly no matter which way you look, so you can see the real shape of the orchard! I mean, you know what I mean? And as you move along, it gets away from you, it turns back into the chaos again, but now it doesn’t matter because now you understand, I mean now you know the secret (2).”
Once you have felt the Oneness, you know it. And once someone feels it, like really connects with it, they are a changed person. I know I was. I describe the sensation of Oneness as ecstatic bliss, hence the All Ages Osteopathy tagline – ride the tide to ecstatic bliss. Another great description is warm honey. It’s addicting. So much so that I have dedicated my career to helping people discover the Oneness for themselves.
Ultimately, I believe this is where the highest manifestation of health lies.
My goal for every treatment is to get the patient’s body to tap into the Oneness. Even if it’s not on a conscious level for everyone, over time, the body still gets more and more familiar. And once you’ve become familiar with something, it becomes easier and easier to find again. So maybe, if I succeed in my endeavors, because of an Osteopathic adjustment, my patient’s will feel much more at peace during their next walk on the beach.
While all the questions I listed at the top of this article are fun life experiences, none of them are necessary for someone to tap into the Oneness. They are just helpful settings. The Oneness is right there, all around us, a part of us. Sometimes we just need to adjust our lens to get there. I practice with the philosophy that our body, mind and spirit’s connection to the Oneness is what allows us to exist at optimal health. Nature always tends towards health and humans are no different. We want to remember and connect, sometimes it just takes some practice and some help to get there.
References:
Friedman, Mel. Where Spirit Touches Matter. Durham, NC. 2022. Pgs 273, 216.