I woke up this morning with a full and grateful heart. You know when you look around and really get just how special life is, how precious every minute is, and how lucky we are to be alive. Problems never go away, and yet we tend to postpone our happiness for a some distant fantasy day when everything will be perfect. What if we could just see the beauty amidst the pain and problems in our lives and in the world? What would that require? A lightness of being, maybe, that would allow us to let go of the things that hold us back or keep us in pain, a way to not take things personally, but to trust, even when we don't understand or have all the information, that everything is going to work out exactly the way it is meant to. How can we find it in ourselves to see what's right instead of what's wrong? We have spontaneous moments of enlightenment where we can see and feel the beauty all around us, but what is that? Why did I wake up this morning feeling so blissful despite the fact that my life is in chaos? It had nothing to do with that. It came from some place of origin within me that knows I am so much bigger and there is so much more than this. That perspective liberates and delights the soul. Someone asked me how I wanted to live my life? I thought for a second and many adjectives came to mind; well, honestly, with integrity, wisely, etc. But the feeling I had was that most of all I wanted to live passionately and poetically. I definitely did not want to live safely or mundanely. So I said, "I want to live the most passionate, poetic life possible!" So, then this person asked me, "What does it mean to live passionately and poetically?" Hmmm...I don't know. Well, the passionately part sort of came with my genes, but poetically? How does one live poetically? What is poetry? It is a way of capturing the essence of something, of extracting the truth, truth being synonomous with beauty. Pain can be as beautiful a thing as joy. It is not the sentiment that makes something beautiful, but the depth of the truth behind it, the concentrated, essential and purity of its origin and expression. It is indilluted, unguarded, undefended and wildly raw and real. Unrefined, unprocessed, natural expression. So little of that exists in the structured world we live in and it's conditioning forcing us to contrive and supress rather than be what we are closest to the core of our being. So, to live poetically I think means to be loyal to the essence of my soul and spirit and also, to seek out that in everything. To take life, every situation, and squeeze the essence out of it, like a precious oil and to let that oil be my motivation, inspiration and nourishment. Or, like grabbing a handful of sand and letting it sift through your fingers until only the gems remain. Taking life openly, generously and boldly and allowing all that is not beautiful to pass through you, having that lightness of being to not hold onto what is not pure poetry in motion. How awesome would life be if we could only be this light all the time. Feeling it all, and then letting it go, taking it all in, and then releasing it all out. Receiving it all and then giving it all, breathing it in, breathing it out, expanding, opening, reaching out and surrendering, trusting, letting go. Breathing in, breathing out, no holding, no stopping the flow. Breathing in, breathing out, the universal rythm, constant, easy, natural. Breathing in, breathing out, waves of life passing through us, filling us, emptying us, moving us. Breathing in, breathing out...boundless, endless, timeless, simple, pure...poetic.
