Sunday, June 7, 2015

Adventures of Stillness

At 5:02 am, I lie awake in bed waiting for my 7:00 alarm to set my day into motion. I'm sure I could sleep right now if I weren't lying in such excitement. Today I work my last day of work before moving out of my apartment and into an adventure. Just me and this girl I am lying next to. Escaping like the sun, seceding from the world we all have come to think of as home, and returning to the home that we have long forgotten.

Tomorrow is that day. For today I seek to be absolutely and entirely present in every moment I find myself in. To love more beautifully than I have before, just as the sun paints a picture as it rounds off the horizon. So too does the sun disappear and leave the earth in darkness. So too does the sun return with magnificent, golden light to warm the cool earth. Never diminishing its light, never discriminating where the light should fall, but ever steadily moving along its path through the sky.

From earth's perspective the sun comes and goes, and those who first observed this pattern understood the sun as a dynamic sphere in the sky. With more understanding of the cosmos we learned that the sun had actually been the one motionless, stoic in its seemingly eternal meditation. This stillness is my soul, and the perception of motion is the perspective of all those on the outside, looking into my life. If you too are still, you will recognize stillness, but the one in motion will always perceive motion from those who are still.

Be still my soul, and may I see clearly all that is still, may I choose to sit in stillness, in peace, and in harmony with all that is still, peaceful and harmonious.

Namaste

Friday, May 8, 2015

Transformation

Transformation can bring you from any point to any other point. Much like the changing of a terrain as one travels, I doubt that transformation is something that begins or ends with a distinctive line. One does not remark, I experienced transformation when I crossed this line; but rather, I experienced transformation as a progression over a series of experiences and an amount of time or space. This morning, I woke to find myself in a sort of self made hell, one that seemed to follow me from moment to moment: this moment I feel hell all around me; this moment I feel that I can only ever destroy, break, or hurt; this moment I realize my detachment from joy. Wherever I looked, I found myself to be in this hell.

I now sit feeling peaceful, but only in part. The transformation is in process, and I am only now becoming aware of it. In the same way that traveling the curvature of a spiral feels to the traveler the same as a circle, the transformation feels like stagnation. This moment I feel that perhaps this hell is cultivating healing within me, in this moment I feel that this hell is destroying all the good that I have managed to culminate within me. All the while, I have been aware that this transformation is occurring, however I have been distancing myself from that knowledge. Somewhere within myself I am entirely aware that I am perfect, that life is perfect; yet another part of myself seems to block that knowledge from me. It's as if I am remembering something that I have forgotten. I see glimpses of this knowledge, in bits and pieces, slowly coming together.

When taking a larger perspective, I now realize that this transformation has been happening since the beginning of my existence. In this technological era, we are often given the opportunity to name ourselves. One of the many names I have given myself, and the one that has stuck the most is walking_in_fog. Thinking of that now, I begin to wonder if this timelessly wise thirteen year old was even me. This name I thought of for myself is one that has more and more meaning every day that I live. The realizations are that I have been walking in fog, that the world is plain, but my eyes fail to see all that is. Today I take a moment to acknowledge that I still am walking in fog, that I am still in the state of not knowing, but I remove the veil of not knowing by realizing that there is a part of me that is knowing. A name that I have welcomed within myself, I now release. I do the same for the name A Thousand Thoughts From Here. I allow myself to be free of names and simply welcome that I am. The duality of "what" I am, or "who" I am is one thing that deserves transformation.

These questions: who, what, where, why, how, are part of what separates me from the part of myself that understands the answer to those questions. To ask the question "who," is to welcome pondering, and confusion; to release the question "who," is to welcome the understanding of the answer to the question. This understanding is something that has been glimpsed time and time again through the process of transformation. As long as I have lived, I have gone back and forth between asking and understanding. The moments of asking have been full of confusion, frustration, fear and anger, ultimately leading deeper into the hell that I woke up to this morning; where the moments of understanding have been full of peace, love, patience and acceptance, ultimately bringing me further along the path of transformation.

This understanding, this knowing allows me to build a world where I am surrounded by these fruits of peace, love, patience and acceptance. More and more, every day I release the questions, and welcome understanding. More and more every moment of today I release the questions, and welcome understanding. I wish now that I would hug more people.

namaste