The Space In Between

The moon shone so brightly this morning I thought someone had left a light on for me.  As I stepped outside into the velvety cloak of the early hour, I almost had to squint.  Brain foggy and thoughts still muddled from a night of fitful sleep, it was just my heart and the moon and the brilliance of the stars. 

The aimless hours between night and morning lose shape in the stillness and the quiet.  The space feels unruffled, calm, like the end of an exhale, that perfect pause at the bottom of your breath.  It is the place from which peace is born, the place from which love springs, the place that is the origin and the anchor and the beating heart of the universe.

There is no story here, awash in moon bath.  There are no words.  I am nameless, bodiless, ethereal.  I am no one and I am everyone and I am everything.  The moon, the stars, the black of night, the big wise willow tree sleeping beneath the hillside, we are all alive – and that is enough.  That is everything.

For now.

Until the sun rises and the day swallows the mellifluous sky and my thoughts awake with the noisy business of obligation and responsibility.  Isn’t it interesting, this dichotomy of worlds?  The perfect tranquil shadowy calm and the raucous jolt of the daily grind?  There is so much turbulence in the world of objects – the hustle and bustle, the constant worrying and unease.  We are always in a state of wanting, always lacking, always in crisis.

Life is by nature disorderly.  It is loud and full and erratic.  It is a science experiment within a universe made up of matter, empty space and atoms that are constantly smashing together.  It is the nature of “things” to collide, to cause friction, to disrupt.  It is biology, ecology, physiology.  The real challenge is finding stillness in the chaos.  The challenge is settling into the empty space even when the pieces of our lives seem to be crashing together around us. 

We easily lose sight of the space in between, the quiet pockets amid the conflict.  But this empty space is ever-present.  It is pervasive.  And it is just as much in the nature of this universe to command the space for peace and stillness as it is for the disorder. There is a gentle, uninterrupted piece of real estate inside every one of us – right now – that is as quiet as the night and as clear and bright as the moon-sodden sky.  It doesn’t go away with the rising sun.  It doesn’t disappear into the clatter of life’s challenges.

Let yourself open into the space of peace that is always near.  Look up into the star-speckled sky and let your eyes soften to the dark wide breadth of the stillness in between.

Jump on the Bandwagon (Our Only Significant Activity, Take Two)

It would be fitting today to talk about love. As it is, I do already believe that it is our only significant activity. And today happens to be the day Hallmark has appointed in its honor.

It would be cliché today to talk about love. It’s so obvious. It’s everywhere. Today is love’s heyday. It’s all anyone is talking about. Shall I spare you?

I don’t think so.

I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s much too big and much too remarkable not to be celebrated and worshipped and revered and adored at every possible moment given. Even today. Even when it’s exactly what I wrote about last time. Even amidst the cheesy cards and candy hearts and red roses. Even when the entire country is singing love’s praises and we’d really like not to jump on the bandwagon. Oh but just do it.

Me? I think we should do it every single day.

The thing about love is, it’s not just a feeling. It’s more than any emotion or sensation or worldly understanding. It’s so much more than a word, an adjective, a noun or a thing. It’s more than a gesture, a kiss, a box of chocolate. Love is the most pure and absolute medium, the most true channel to the center of the center of the center of the bottom of the vast enormous ocean of this life. Love is the vehicle through which we can sink into one another’s hearts and lean on each other and stand side-by-side growing old and wise and strong. Together, with love, we are stronger. We are better.

When it’s all over I don’t think we will contemplate the notion of our “self.” What we are - individuals, flesh and blood, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. In the end, we all turn to dust. It is each other that we carry with us. And while we are here, for this very short ride, life rages all around us. And every moment, every life we touch, every friend and every lover, every brother, sister and mother we love along the way, every person we touch brings us closer to the magic of what it means to be alive.

Our Only Significant Activity

Worry has a sly way of sneaking up on you, doesn’t it?  It is ever present, a quiet steady drone, drip drip dripping in the space between migrant thoughts, picking up speed and sound with time and attention until we are drenched, soaked and heavy hearted, a fury of mind chatter and restlessness. 

Mark Nepo says “there is no end to worry, because there is no end to what is out of our view, beyond our very small eyes.”  Worry is a way to gamble with what might or might not happen.  Why is it that we so often put our money on flawed possibilities, on what could go wrong?  I think we are drawn to the dark.  We are drawn to the shadows that are the yin to the yang of this universe.  There is something comfortable and familiar and safe and oddly magnetic in shrinking back from the light.  It’s easy.  Instead of bearing our naked soul and casting our heart-rays into the sky, we stand still and weave sticky webs of worry around our spirit. 

I’m beginning to think that our only significant activity is to love.  Everything else is irrelevant.  All of the worry and all of the fear and all of the doubt and everything’s that wrong with this life and in this world, don't let it swallow you.  Love it.  Love everything.  Just love it.  Love it with all that you are.  Fill it with so much love and light that you squeeze out the angst and the fear and you break free from the web of worry and you rise above the shadows to which you are drawn.  

Love everything you know and everything you don’t.  Love it all to god damn pieces.  Love yourself and your friends and your husband and your dog and your house.  Love the hour long commute and the traffic and the man you see holding a cardboard sign on the side of the road.  Love the color blue, the cellulite on your thighs, the way the sky glows before the sun wakes in the morning, a grain of sand, post-its.  Love the chaos and the confusion and the not-knowing.  Love this unending journey for all that it is, because guess what, it's all we've got.   

Eat, drink, think, breathe and be the love that you are.  Feel satisfied.  Don’t let the residue of worry and the anticipation of what might go wrong encumber your spirit.  Instead, close your eyes to it and hold one anothers hands tight and live straight from your heart.  Keep it clear and open and plow ahead, loving everything in your way. 

Bring It On

Another new year.  A shiny new year, bow on top, filled with all of the impending unknowns and eager anticipation that the last held.  The promise of rebirth and renewal gleams, the promise of a clean palate and unsullied stretches of days ahead and the official closing of another chapter.  It’s all very ceremonial.  We put on our party hats, bid adieu to the mishaps and setbacks and disappointments of yesteryear, and turn our faces and hearts toward the seedlings of opportunity waiting to sprout from the 365 days ahead.   

As we grow, so do our resolutions.  Our aspirations and desires and hopes and intentions evolve and carry the weight of our years and the grit of responsibility.  The topography of our lives is ever-changing.  It gets more complicated and more messy and more difficult.  And as I stand now at the foot of 2011, another year passed, another year to come, I see how all of the planning and hoping and mind jabbering is so much smaller than what we choose to do with the changing topography of our lives.  What we choose to do when our dreams change shape and our aspirations fall short and the seedlings of opportunity we have planted stay underground.  And whether we are able to open our eyes and our hearts to the gifts that are born from the turbulence that pains us.

Life does not go as planned.  Thank God.  I would have missed out on so much if it did.  We mustn't forget how small we are.  We are children of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars.  We must love every minute.  We must try.  Even when life doesn't go according to plans.  We must keep our eyes and our hearts and our arms wide open to welcome the quiet gifts that hide beneath our unanswered prayers and unfulfilled resolutions. 

This year I will continue to dream.  I will dream big.  I will bask in the promise of rebirth and renewal as I welcome a shiny new chapter.  And I will never lose hope.  Not ever.  Not if my seedlings don't sprout.  Not if I stumble.  Not if I fail.  I will remember that even when it feels like I'm sinking, I will survive.  I will remember that like the trees, my roots are deep and strong.  I will remember that like the stars, my light shines forever.    

2011, I am ready.  Bring it on.