The Earth has turned past that point at which we enjoy the vibrant
fiery display of colorful light bending and brightening along the horizon. Cerulean blue skies are gently fading still. The sea
breeze has picked up and I can hear wind chimes tinkling in the distance. They bring a pleasant emphasis to the end of
a beautifully temperate summer day. One breath and a glance around me and I notice the silence and
stillness is palpable as people have already returned to their dwellings and
settled in for the night. I let my outward glance linger a little longer and notice the beautiful
trees outside my window swaying in the breeze while singing a song that sounds like a beautifully rushing river. The rustling leaves I somehow feel stirring something deep within my soul and I think to myself that this moment could not be any more perfect.
I’ve slowed down in my writing quite a bit lately, for
months actually and it has been intentional.
I've been blogging for more than eight years and have rarely had a shortage of things to say or thoughts to think. But my life experiences these past many years have left me with so much to contemplate and process offline that I finally took the time to pause a bit more. As I think about it, it seems funny to me that with all of those years of writing and time spent reflecting I still feel as if I have barely scratched the surface and at any moment this amazing something is just going to come rushing up and out of me and that'll be it for me. I'll be spent! I've been too busy to reflect in a way I might have liked because I took out a very big life lesson plan and my, has it been all too easy to be overly focused there. I
think after so many years of reflection quite openly, I’ve needed to focus more
on the present. Not just being in it but
learning to breathe it in, accept it as it is, remain okay with all that I have created and learn to appreciate all the things tangible and
intangible in this life that I can touch or that touches me. I needed to sit more quietly and to just feel.
So, one of my many journeys has ended over the past couple
of years and I’ve had to slow down to process it and really come to terms with
all I’ve learned. The discoveries have
been beautifully eye-opening and well, completely mind bending. I’m left with a much emptier bag of beliefs
from the point at which my conscious spiritual journey began almost 30 years
ago. I don’t have as many questions as I
once had for they have been readily answered.
I did not have the benefit of a single wise and gentle elder who guided
me specifically. No. I walked through every possible lesson I
could with the best of intent and fell to my knees often in agony for what I
did not see until it was upon me. But then again, as the
tears stopped falling, this infinite well of gratitude opened up within me and
I began to understand much of what I was truly searching for. Many thanks, as always, to the hundreds of
teachers who crossed my path with a word, a smile, an emotion, a drama or quiet
acknowledgement. I sincerely thank every
one of you.
As I shook away the last vestiges of torn beliefs and worn
out stories, I started to reflect a little more relying on the only source I
truly had at my disposal. That source
was my own consciousness. I had to learn
to sit with just my thoughts, my anxieties, my fears, my worries, my
inadequacies, my pathological never-ending-seeming blind spots and the
lingering effects of my environmental psychology as well as the after-effects of
everyone else’s. What did I learn? The next book will explain much of it but
suffice it to say that I learned letting go was all that was needed and that
meant letting go of belief, of hopes, of dreams, of desires all born of the desires of a version of me that is now a bit of a stranger to me. I guess I just needed something to hold onto as we all do. That is no easy thing although I tap it out as
if it were trivial. I guess as we age we
all have our defining moments to consider and reconsider again and again to
make sure we’ve gleaned enough of life’s important lessons in order that we
might continue more meaningfully. Am I done yet? Oh Heavens no...not even close.
My goal now is dealing with the emptiness that I have
created unconsciously and yet so meticulously and with so much faith.
I’m letting go of everything I thought I should have been, could have
been or would have been and embracing the reality of who I am even though I’m
not yet, despite near 50 years now on this Earth, certain of who precisely that
is. And the funny thing is I’m okay with
a little mystery in my life. In general,
I can feel what I need to know and I’m satisfied with that. I’m happy at my core to know and understand
the beauty of every single thing I’ve created as I have made my way through
life this far. A prior frame of my thought process would have had me writhing in agony over the imperfect execution of much of my journey up until this point. But something snapped a few years back and it's not that I stopped caring but that I suddenly realized the futility of the prior impetus for my own motion and resulting perceptions.
My mind grows curious again about what comes next but there
is much less urgency to it, there is no fear of not finding it and no worry now
that I’ll miss it. I’ve learned so far
that we truly have everything we really need at the moment we need it
most. For now that need I have truly is
just to be, to exist, to continue to experience with eyes wide open not in
expectation but with an eagerness to participate and to choose to embrace what
comes my way. What other choice have I
really? Well, I suppose I could become
all fearful and worried or delude myself with some quest of great mystical or magical
importance. But I’ve learned the secrets
are by far more simple than that. No
complex constructs are necessary to feel, to breathe, to watch as the sun
climbs to the center of the sky and makes it way all the way across again. It is so simple to recognize that
unmistakable light in a child’s eyes or calm peace of your pet, the chaos of
loving family life and the oh so important day job of course. It is all really perfect and beautiful. Just don’t over do it on the seriousness
part. There is a gentleness in the energy around you when you open your heart
to your own well of compassion and let it spill out all around you in every
direction.
I came into this world facing a vast chasm of inherent dichotomy and striving so hard
to reconcile it to perfection not realizing this world of opposites and
everything within it was already perfect and not needing reconciling.
The traces of the many illusions I once held begins to leave me a little more and I take more time in the dark of
the night to open my eyes to nothing for in the nothing I perceive lies
everything that matters, the peace, the love, the compassion, the beautiful
energy of All That Is and all of the universe only one tiny subtle feeling away. And all of this came crashing into my mind as
I drove home from work last night. I
looked up at the sky watching the blue fade into the brightness of the
beginning of sunset and I realized what I could not see was there none-the-less
and how I was moving at a set speed, while the Earth turned and rotated around
our sun as our Milky Way Galaxy spiraled itself out amongst the other stars and galaxies into the beautiful dark
matter that surrounds every drop of light.
I felt it then, infinity and it took my breath away. I paused all other thought in that very
moment and waited patiently for my breath to find me. As it did, I smiled from somewhere so deeply
inside, the light and the energy I felt rivaled that of our beautiful sun. The traffic light in the near distance turned
red. I slowed to a stop resolute,
comforted on the edge of everything not at all okay. With perfect calm, I lifted my hand and I
turned up the radio. I left my thoughts of the infinite universe trailing behind me as I turned to the
nearest human in the car to my left and smiled with a deeply profound sense of appreciation for all of humanity. Life is so very tenuous and still we
strive. I let the thoughts finally rest and made
my last turn. I finally made it home.
© 2016 Jaie Hart (photo/words)
