Reflections of Big Sur

Now the fog is burning away and with it the worries. Bars of sunlight puncture the clouds. The ocean appears again, down steep cliffs, with diaphanous wisps of white vapor foam. I study the shore and the coastal stone monoliths of Big Sur and feel a pull deep inside me. Visions from distant memories come flooding back and I know I have visited here before, this place like in dreams, and with my family sleeping soundly, away in their own lands, and me just driving with a thrumming tickly feeling in my guts and heaven all around and the sea and the sea cliffs and the world wide sun god radiant jubilation everywhere; I recall, in fragments, little moments of my life: laughter, singing, dancing, crying, fighting, loving, giving and forgiving and no one can say if it’s right or wrong, not gods not men and the shadows creep back into the deep forest of the redwood giants going where shadows go when they can’t hold their breath any longer…it’s right here, man; it’s not any place else but right here, the big man on the radio says and I pull the car off the road in a little gravel turn-out, lock the doors with no one even stirring; running now, down the embankment, across the rubbery flower vines in the sand, and the orange flowers and the blue flowers crunching under my shoes, running as hard as I can, the ocean with its resplendent astral fabric and shore birds dipping and sand birds scattering and this is exactly a place I have visited before in a causal world of my own creation and as I run, for a moment I am not sure if I really am alive or if I have died and am now running in heaven, free, sublimely free, and filled with love, baby, big love and big freedom, and I am a voyager, a spark of energy in the cerulean landscape of subatomic dynamos, just merging, ever merging, with the space-time-wonder-love-bliss, the whoosh and roar of God out there past the breakers, me running madly skipping with childlike idiot laughter and my lungs alive with the salty refreshing sea-mist explosion of light...I had arrived.

Some of the Things That Make Me Cry

Before I had a near-death experience, then, I could never cry. My wife would ask me, “why don’t you cry?”
I didn’t cry at my dad’s funeral, or my grandmother’s or grandfather’s funeral. Or when I knew my wife was sick or from the joy at seeing the birth of my kids. I just couldn’t cry. I didn’t know how.
I grew up holding in my emotions. My brain was not hard-wired for crying. The only time I remembered crying was as a child in moments of extreme pain or anger.
Now I cry and am moved to tears often. And they are not tears of sadness; when I am flooded with immense bliss, I cannot help but cry.
Sometimes I will cry at the site of a bird, or hearing my children’s laughter, or hearing a great piece of music, or sitting in church, or watching an inspirational show, or simply reading about some of my heroes: Whitman, Jesus, Buddha, Poe, Beethoven, Yogananda, Dr. Seuss, Fellini. Or when I simply think of Mahavatar Babaji, I am moved to tears. I cannot help it. The mere thought of Babaji crushes me.
I cried recently when a friend mentioned his enjoyment of Lao Tzu’s work or when another friend discussed the Dalai Llama.
I recall going to see Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony performed by the L.A. Philharmonic and when I was sitting in the audience, without a single note being played, I couldn’t help but weep uncontrollably because of the incandescent meaning of the great master’s work -- one man’s connection and inspiration directly from God, expressed with such profound and infinite clarity and brilliance.
My family still doesn’t fully accept the fact that whenever I hear “Moonlight Sonata”, tears will unfailingly run down my cheeks. It is even a running joke when we go for long drives, they will sneak in the CD and wait for the tears to flow.
I can only describe the feeling as being “overwhelmed by the immensity of the divine” or a deeper love that fills me up with an all-pervading sense of joy and beauty in creation.
These are not tears of sadness. I cry because I feel touched deeply by something I can’t describe that moves me beyond description.
I cry because, for a brief instant, I feel in touch with the ETERNAL. I feel in touch with whatever it is, way out there, across the universe, that is also right underneath my nose.
You will know you are close to acquiring a heart of compassion when you see a bird and can’t help but weep or when you think of Jesus and his immense sacrifice and feel it deep in the pit of your soul. When a child laughing and running at the park takes you back to a time when you were closer to who you really are, and closer to God.
Some of the other things that make me cry now, not in any particular order are: the sparkle in my wife’s eyes; my daughter’s laughter or singing; watching my son play sports; attending mass or visiting a church, temple or synagogue; listening to certain music, usually classical (esp. Beethoven’s Ninth and Moonlight Sonata); seeing a parent’s love for their child; watching a bird or small animal; seeing emotional movies; hearing “The Star Spangled Banner” sung at sporting events; passages in books, mainly Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” (esp. Song of Myself, number 20); some of Jack Kerouac’s poetry; seeing the look of wonder in my son’s or daughter’s eyes when they watch a butterfly or a hummingbird or a horse run through a meadow or fish swimming in a stream; a sunset; watching the crowds of people go by at the mall or at the fair and feeling their struggle and sorrows and just wanting to take it all away...

Zen Birdwatching In America

“It was around the time I lost my job, my father passed away, my grandmother passed, my wife contracted breast cancer at age twenty-seven, and I almost died…” Thus begins the true-life account of personal transformation and a never-ending search for the Eternal in unexpected and unfamiliar places including a UFO encounter in West Virginia, a birdwalk with a crack addict, a vision on a mount, a near-death experience, flying a hundred feet off the ground at a peyote ceremony, meeting the Buddha, and coming face to face with an incarnation of Divine Mother.
From the profound to the profane, from the sacred to the absurd to the downright bizarre, Jay Nuzum leads you along the footpath of an Everyman trying to find his way through the beguiling maze of an American life. ZEN BIRDWATCHING IN AMERICA will touch your heart, tickle your funny bone and make you a believer in the power of you.

“A moving, triumph of spirituality that will change your life.” William Schorer, City Book Review

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