Borrowed Bones

Once in a while, we are given moments of real grace. Moments of knowing who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or how we dress, but by feeling our tender place in this world. And rather than finding ourselves in everything, we find everything in ourselves.

In the end, nobody keeps any of what they have. Life is only a borrowing of bones. And so, while our hearts still beat, we must remember that everything is right where we are. All of life is in whatever moment we wake to. 

We try so hard to find what we need - what we want - outside of ourselves. We chase after objects, people, experiences. We become masters at climbing the mountains of the world instead of breaking trail into our center. We become masters at seducing strangers to feel loved instead of embracing the softer, less perfect aspects of who we are. 

In the end, seeking only brings us to the edge of knowing ourselves. If we never look inward we become experts of life on the edge. We become chronic amnesiacs of spirit, seldomly unlocking what all our seeking means. 

In order to find true peace - true grace - we must take a genuine risk inside. 

Our aliveness depends on our ability to generate and sustain wonder inside ourselves, for ourselves. To lengthen the moments we are truly uncovered, beneath our borrowed bones. To be still and quiet until all of the elements and activity of this earth stir the facets of infinite, boundless life waiting within us. 

The World Is Your Playground

Another move. Another address. Another chapter in my story. Sometimes it feels I’ve lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths. Yes, in many ways life is short. But damn, life is long too. It is long and deep and profound and intricately rich. It is full, bursting, overflowing, plump with the quandaries of being alive. But it’s funny, because for me, the deeper I slip into my years, the farther I get from the ground. Like I’m floating above myself, peering into the window of my life.

Lately it feels as though I've become unhinged, unbound, uninhibited. I am no longer searching, I am just opening. I am no longer trying to make sense of pain but instead trying to be a soft and sturdy home in which the truth can land. I see so clearly how we make our way through this world - through our days, forging ahead - how we build our little lives, make rules, set standards, restraining ourselves, clinging desperately to ideals. We become rigid, repressed, trapped inside a narrowly manufactured picture of who we think we should be. We define ourselves in hard terms and then we live up to them. Because what else would we live up to if not the story we’ve created for ourselves?

Life is unpredictable. It is god damn scary. We cannot know beyond this present moment. Each one of us lives on the shore between the depths of being and the dangers of experience. Oh well. This is life. And here is the truth: There is no one else but you. No one else but YOU. You are the master of your destiny. You are the creator, the conductor, the architect, the author of your story. You are the commander of your happiness. You are magnificent.

And the world is your playground.

The world is YOUR playground.

Have FUN! You can be anyone. Be who you want to be. Life is a game. WIN.

Life is so fucking good. It is an explosion of bliss. Explore it. Choose to be happy. Choose to free yourself from old patterns. Choose to let go of all of your should and should nots. Choose to face life squarely enough to see that it is not a barricade but a door into the endless breath that has no breather. It is only YOU. Choose to let go of every little thing that is holding you back and DIVE, naked, into this moment.

Dive into THIS moment.

The water is perfect. Trust me.

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.