day three: 27 days of gratitude

Grateful for my body and health exactly as it is…exactly as I am…right now.

I lay on the grey-carpeted floor of Denver Place in downtown Denver, curled against a wall in a private meeting room, listening to the conversations of the larger group attending the symposium of which I was a part. I waited for my heart to regain a normal rhythm and the nauseus feeling to retreat. I felt again the sadness of possessing an unpredictable body, that neither medicine nor I have been able to “fix”; a body that, in truth, I don’t even understand. As I lay there, I wonder, “Could this experience be an invitation?” This body with its stammering heartbeat, dizziness and pain, is my body. It is my body now, exactly as it is. After years of doctors, careful diet and healthy lifestyle this body can’t be pushed away or denied or solved. I began to wonder, as I lay humbled on the floor, if perhaps the time has come for it to be allowed, deeply in this moment, exactly as it is.

We, consciously or unconsciously, strive for a Utopia devoid of messiness and suffering, without problems and conflict, but I wonder if all meaningful encounters with Life begin with LIFE as it is right now. Is the first step to change, an honest, open look at this moment, in all its distressing disguises? Could the first step to a new here include a willingness to pause HERE, before rushing toward the next solution, idea or innovation? What if the messiness of life is an invitation to pause, simply and quietly, in this moment as it is right now?

I am grateful for this moment, this body, this life…exactly as it is.

Comments

tree digging

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...

Coraggio

When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment. It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float. It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within. It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains. Eyes closed. Eyes opened. A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being. It takes courage.

connection

It has been an interesting few weeks. I have been contemplating connection a great deal as a basic need of being human. I watch my fellows rushing from one place to the next, gathering technology to themselves like talismans of protection against the emptiness of separation- a perpetual flutter of texts and calls and music and smart phones and GPS and more. Yet so many of us are longing for the central cord of union- with one another, with ourselves, with life. It's as if we are frightened of being disappointed, so we retreat deeper and deeper into the tight orbit of self. My teacher recently filled me in on a little secret...the meaning of life is to LIVE IT . That isn't tidy or safe. It is messy and vulnerable and unpredictable and unknown. And yet LIFE extends an invitation to us in every moment asking us to unleash the breathtaking beauty hidden in our hearts and experience, EXPERIENCE, experience life. Life isn't singular. ...

angelbirdflies

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