Wondering where the singing gecko part of the story is?  You’ve arrived.  

Many changes flowed from that ‘happening’, almost all of them subtle and light. I felt a breezy new energy and wanted to read more, meditate more, ‘just be’ more. But we’d bought an older house which needed constant repairs and improvements, which was taking up a lot of time.

Just outside our new bedroom window stood an old black olive tree grown too large for the space. Its branches scraped against the roof, leaving streaks and scars, and its roots endangered the foundation.

But the tree also provided shade from the intense Florida sunshine and a resting spot for lots of birds. And a gecko.

A loud gecko.

A loud gecko who, every night when I would crawl into bed, would make a horrible noise, something like >rwaaaaak< >rwaaaak<  >rwaaaak<.

I saw it once, and couldn’t believe the giant sound came from such a tiny creature!

This went on for weeks.  Some nights I was nearly in tears, pleading “Please, please stop…” to no avail. I would lean on friends’ sympathy so hard that the gecko became our daily news. I even wrote one night in my journal, “I’m sure he’s here to teach me something if I let him.”
Not realizing it was a prayer.

I don’t think it was that very night, but it might have been. I fell asleep early, deeply, and at some point began to stir, woken by the most Astoundingly Beautiful Music. It seemed to be playing both within and without me— a layered, heavenly sound I wished would go on and on forever.  

Yet as I continued to wake, the song began to change, warping into a sound I thought I recognized. It was… sigh, yes, there it was: the >rwaaak< of the gecko.

I came to myself, realizing I was in my room, except that now, I couldn’t hear *just* the >rwaaak< alone.  I could also hear, alongside, this deep and ethereal music.

After that, the gecko was gone. Or at least he was gone from the tree.  I never heard from him (her?) again,  

There’s a lot here to consider inspirationally, also to see about our minds and the wonders of consciousness.  A fascinating link that showed up in my life later, helping to convey:

Someone Recorded Crickets then Slowed Down the Track, And It Sounds Like Humans Singing

“Composer Jim Wilson has recorded the sound of crickets and then slowed down the recording, revealing something so amazing. The crickets sound like they are singing the most angelic chorus in perfect harmony. Though it sounds like human voices, everything you hear in the recording is the crickets themselves.”

Just, I mean, Wow.

One of the richest places for dream or meditative practices, is in what some traditions call the amrit vela (nectar veil).  Sikhs call it the ‘hour of God’. It is around 3 or 4 am, when barriers are softer. before we’ve put on roles and agendas.  This doesn’t seem to be a rule implemented, but rather to be based on discovery of natural ‘thin place’ openings.

Hypnopopia is specifically the boundary state on the edge of waking, whereas hypnogogia is the opposite. In my hynopopic state, the gecko transformed from a nuisance that didn’t fit in to my plans and didn’t seem to benefit my life, into a guide who taught me how to further lower my guard and trust (the groundlessness, openness, emptiness, vastness) what Life is doing.

The singing gecko imparted ‘ears to hear’.

(Part 1, 2)