001: The Beginning of Something

In this opening episode of Projector Designs, Meghan shares some perspective as to what has been coming up for her lately and some of the things she has noticed about the experience of life, relationship and meaning - especially here in 2025 and beyond. With reflections on breath, healing, existence, and noticing life as it is, this first episode invites you into a space of slowing down and seeing with fresh eyes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Okay, my friends. Um this is the beginning of it's the beginning of something for sure. Um what I'm thinking, feeling, hoping, believing, trusting um, is that it's the beginning of really valuable conversations about existence. And by existence, I really just mean life, breath, movement, experience, beingness. Life is like a trip. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it is. If you think about it, if you feel about it, life itself is a trip. So I live in a downtown metropolis, and I park my car in an open parking lot. This open parking lot has a view of the downtown metro. And um, when I look over the downtown skyline, it literally feels like a dream. Like it's strange and weird to just be staring at this sky with these buildings, and it's always like hazy, and I know it's just like smog or whatever, but it also just feels like that's not even real. But like I could run there, I could walk there, I drive through there, I see it, I feel it, I touch it. I know people who work in those buildings. I mean, my building is a part of it in whatever way. I happen to be like right on the outside of it, I feel like like the tallest of buildings. So I see all these tall buildings and it feels like a dream. It feels like surreal, I guess is the word. Maybe I'm in some kind of like video game. And then, you know, I see people and they walk and they talk and they look down at their phones, and sometimes you make eye contact with them, and sometimes you don't. And when I say you, I mean one. Sometimes I I make contact, eye contact, and sometimes I don't. And yeah, it's just like life is a trip, you know, whether you're open or not to it being a trip is another that's another thing. But it could be a trip, you know. I grew up in a rural area, you know, I grew up on land, I grew up on um playing outside, I grew up and using my imagination, I grew up playing, you know, in the driveway, uh, shooting hoops by myself, jumping on the trampoline, digging in the sandbox, creating our own sandboxes, reading in the trees, um making hot cocoa and like going out and making myself a little fort in the trees and like not wanting to come back inside for like hours and days on end, you know, and just going inside for specific little needs, I guess, and then going back out to my like cozy spot. Like that was the thing for sure in the fall. For you know, often was like just me spending time outside by myself imagining. I have a really deep connection with the fall season, um, with the autumn, with the kind of the ending of like long days of sun and um more like kind of the the invitation or the beginnings of you know things going into hibernation. Um you know, I have positive memories of that time as a as a kid, and I have not so positive time uh memories of that time as a teenager. Um and then I think as an adult, I've just I've spent a lot of my adult years kind of unattached to the seasons, but I also think seasons have really shifted in my lifetime. Um I was born in 1989, and I grew up in Oklahoma, the center part of Oklahoma, and there's like kind of a line that goes right through the middle part of the state, and the eastern side of the state is more lush green trees and water, and the west side of the state is more flat, and I don't want to just say like yellow, like yellow instead of green. Um, it's probably not entirely true, but it just felt that way because it was just more flat, less trees, less water. Uh, and I lived right in the center, but like on the east side, you know. And I feel like the east side is or was at the time, anyway, you know, like we I got to experience a lot of seasons. Um and maybe this is more of a I'm not trying to get like super scientific with it or anything, but um, literally just the terrain is what I'm talking about on the east side, was just like more lush, especially with trees. I'll just keep it with the trees for now. But then being in the part of the kind of like where we were at, like longitudinally and latitudinally, so to speak, um, we experienced a lot of seasons, like all the seasons, you know. We had hot, hot summers, we had cool falls, we had um, you know, winters with snow and no leaves on the trees, but like the evergreens obviously would still be green. We had springs that bud, you know, like trees and flowers would just like bloom and bud, and there would be lots of like fragrance and scents outside, and then we'd get into the heat of the summer and things would start to kind of be more deserty, you know. Um, had to water the lawn, make sure the flowers and the flower beds were watered. And yeah, I just, you know, I I actually am just so grateful for growing up with seasons because like I don't know, that song just came to mind, you know, like seasons change, you know. Um and I think seasons don't just change externally, I think seasons change us internally. If we're aware, if we lean into the trip that life is, then even the change of seasons can be uh an experience that we have and that we embrace. And all of life is an experience, you know. We have we were born with these five senses. We were born with um, you know, the ability to see, the ability to taste, the ability to smell, the ability to hear, the ability to feel. And these are the five senses that we use in our world. And for those of us who have developed deeper and higher spiritual practices, then there are some other senses, so to speak, that we can use, that we do use to feel, to see, to hear, to smell, even maybe, I don't know, um, to touch. And so that's neat, but it doesn't replace our physical senses, you know? Like it's still cool to be alive, it's still cool to be uh human, you know, it's still not that being cool is the requirement, but it's still an awesome experience. Like if you didn't have your five senses, then yeah, that would be something, right? Like it's not to say you wouldn't have an experience with four senses. Like maybe some of you listening to this um have, you know, less than full capacity on your five senses. But whatever senses you have, let's just say your your sense of smell is going, or your sense of sight is going, or your sense of hearing is going. Like the idea isn't to resist to live fully. The idea isn't to resist what is, it's to embrace what is and be like, oh holy shit. Now I have these senses because this one is kind of failing me. Now I have these other senses that I can use to experience the world. And that seems cool. And by cool, my my definition is just like awesome, you know, badass, lovely, perfect. That whatever is happening, I'm gonna find the experience that there is in it. And that's why I say life's the trip. So I'm sitting here um outside my apartment building in this downtown metropolis. I'm sitting next to this is actually an oak tree, which is really cool. I think it might be a black oak tree. I'll let you know when I find out for sure. But I'm sitting next to this tree that or it's planted at some point. And it's been taken care of. It's grown well. It's holding holding itself up. I don't know when it was planted. I've only been living here for a couple years, so I don't know when it was planted, but it's been it looks healthy, it looks lush, it looks full. And nature is speaking. I can't remember who it is that said this, but I think it was Terence McKenna. But nature is speaking. This is not a metaphor. You know, like this isn't a metaphor that we're talking about. There is life outside of us humans. There's life in the animal population, there's life in the insect population, there's life in the plant population, there's life in the seas, in the skies, you know, like there is life all around us. And so something that has become very clear to me over the last couple of years is that of what is often referred to as animism. Um, I don't use that word a whole lot because it it doesn't seem, it doesn't seem to be required to use that word to explain what I'm about to explain. But if that helps you in your research or your understanding, then I want to share that word. Um, but it's this idea and this concept that there are more people than just human people, right? That there are plant people and there are insect people and there are animal people and there are um you know tree people and flower people. There's people, there's a people in whatever way that that life has life. So in the Buddhist practice of just mindfulness, um, there's an invitation that stands that we honor all of life, and that means we honor ourselves, and that means we honor our trees, and that means we honor our insects, and that means we honor our animals, and that means we honor because it they are life, and honor does not mean that we don't engage with them, obviously. It doesn't mean that we don't benefit from them. Honor means to to honor, honor means to respect, honor means to to love. Um, and these things are defined in the relationship between honor and respect are best defined in the relationship between. Love is best defined in the relationship between. So it's me and my relationship with that matters. It's me and my relationship with that has a truth to it, right? That that there it's not as if there is just a thing that exists. It is like life matters, life exists, all of these things are true without my relationship to it. But once I start engaging, or once I start having a relationship with, then that relationship matters. Like what I do with it, how I be with it, how I treat it, how I speak with it, how I am with it matters. So I mean that's everything from just being present where there is to be present to speaking when there is to speak, and and doing when there is to do. Because there's always a presence, there's always an energy, there's always an occurrence, there's always something happening, there's always communication, whether it's verbal or not. There's there's communication, there's relationship, there's presence, there's energy, period. Until until I die. And I think that is such a important thing to consider once again, that life is not. It is infinite. Life is infinite in the way that it's infinite, but our experience of life is not infinite. This experience of life is not infinite, therefore, as Mary Oliver said, what will you do with your one and precious life? What will you do with your one wild and precious life? Will you treat it wildly, or will you treat it like you're waiting to die? Which is what a lot of people have chosen. To no fault of their own, because that's what they were taught. They were taught that you live a certain way on earth so that you can have an eternity a certain way. When we're actually being invited, I believe, to bring eternity into the now and to live as if eternity is happening now. To be present as if eternity is now, like the kingdom is now, a quote unquote kind of thing, that heaven on earth is now, that there is not a pie in the sky day that will happen and everything will shift and change. I I have seen the scripture in the Bible that speaks, like in the twinkling of an eye, right? In the blink of an eye. I believe that to be this present moment here now. You know, like that's what feels right to me. What feels right to me is being in my body present for all of the goodness, for all of the beauty, for all of the love, for all of the relationship that is here. And being in an earth suit and being in this body and being on earth is tough. It's a challenge, it's dense, it's heavy, but there are ways to lighten that. And I believe that is first and foremost in a choice, and then second, in our practice to continue the choice, but to practice that choice day in and day out, hour in and hour out, conversation in and conversation out, um, space in and space out kind of thing, right? So these are my ponderings on this day, September 17th, 2025. And I'm gonna end this because we're at 17 minutes, and why not? But I'll be back, my friends. There's a lot happening, and it's time. I love you.