Exit the Circular Firing Squad and Be Not Alone
Self Will is not enough. Contemplation is only one important piece of the puzzle. Call it faith, call it a perspective that notices the highest, call it the chaotic miracle of aliveness: When we are in relationship with the divine, we ask that the mysterious path of grace be revealed to us rather than muscling our way towards peace of mind with a clenched jaw.
Asking, focus there. Inquiring, feel there. Your humble heart arises. A softening, a kiss that makes you cry, a glimpse of awe you could whole heartedly endeavor to sustain. And it will become hidden, and it will be revealed again.
Grow up with a vengeful God? Triggered by the mention of her name? There may be the possibility of claiming your own unique understanding and relationship to the author of the Big Bang, (be she atomic happenstance or conscious intelligence) the Force of nature that wrung you dry from the ocean and made you a land going creature, the Whipping Wind that bows mountains over the course of deep time.
Nothing less than the sacred will do for a life like this. Nothing less than gathering the profane in our arms and including it too. Nothing short of feeling the whole beautiful catastrophe, soldiers in our dreams, heartbreak in our guts, tears-streaming laughter pouring from our perfect faces.
It is in my nature to pulse between remembering and forgetting. I feel badly about myself for not remembering all the time. I want to hold out perspective for you, but lose my bearings and resist.
Let’s follow the Buddhists to market chanting in our hearts “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional” all the way. Exit the circular firing squad around which your many interior voices have converged. And ask. Pray. Inquire. Meditate. Remember. That you are engaged in the myth of the individual. You are part of a dynamic being, the earth, who is a daughter of stars. You are water and salt and conscious awareness connected as deeply as a canopy to roots, though the distance may feel huge from yourself to another.
Answers will come. Mysteries will pervade. And you may rest a little bit more deeply knowing that on one level, it is impossible to be alone. The room you are in is sighing with you. The ants are in the walls. The air is speaking its own invisible language while you imagine you are the only one at home.
With Deep Spring Love,
Hilary Elizabeth