Nothing could be better than being human. Surrendering. Do you feel that deep inside? A flame burns Within, and these makeshift bodies in which we live are candles of soft wax, living and breathing as skin. A sparkle of birth and an eagerness ebbing in and out of us like the ocean tide. Our fluids inside nourish and clear away the old, tasting of sea salt and blood. We are renewal itself. We are night and day, and we are indeed all the seasons.

We are constantly reaching internally through the tides of life and then testing the waters as we expand to the farthest distance of our comfort zone. We are a pulse. We are a particle. We are a wave in motion. We are experience Itself. We are Whole. We are pieces of the puzzle which all inter-connect to each other. We are one thing, and then we are another, ever-changing. We are still. We are active. We are organisms. We are stardust living an earthly life. A sparkler burns, with flickers of light landing in air, and we meld with the elements, transforming from one form to the other. We are souls living a very human existence. Deciding our level of surrendering.
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This life as a human faces pain and suffering. Not one of us escapes such an encounter. So many of us look away, trying to pretend life is not as it is. We fight trust. We battle acceptance. We stop acknowledging the Truth which looks us in the eye. We build weapons, and start wars. We lie. We cheat. We steal. Sometimes we murder and we don’t look back. Calloused from the past and fear, we freeze in time. Numbness is the extreme state of loss. Complete forgetfulness. We lose our senses and know not why we came here. We dampen our glow. We try to fit in, even when it makes no sense. Cruelty and bullying. In our inconsequential smallness, we try to hurt each other. But mostly we hurt ourselves. Humanity is dimming. It’s lost its direction in so many ways. That first breath is withering. The air is dirty. The options have run out. Or so it seems.

The Light And Darkness. Yes, the tango seems to be slowing down. Movement comes to a halt, but underneath is the flickering longing to exist and to crawl. The need to grow. It’s so strong. It never dies. It can takes us through any challenge. It can place us high on a mountain top. It can have us walk through fire or miles of snow deep and bitter cold. It can be a mother’s embrace that nurses her baby back to health. It can be expressed in innumerable shades of human love and effervescence. The essence which lives inside this shell of a body is eternal. We are so much more than we have ever imagined. We are not isolated. Rather life gives us a rich unfurling chance at time and space. It gave us an opportunity to identify and to believe. Life is about expression and creativity.

We get to pretend that we are individuals, living independently and cut off. And then something whispers to us to wake up. What will we choose? The potential. We gain a rich understanding of self and relationship. We think that we have discovered truth and freedom. It feels real. It feels like we can touch reality. But what are we really doing here?

What is real? And who else could be the leaders, if not you and me, that make things happen for the best? Do we have any iota whether any of this is of our own doing? Or are we puppets on a string. Are we being played out. Or are we the the One? Wow that feels so overwhelmingly big to consider. Could it possibly be that we are more than our make believe limited human Self? Do we dare to imagine? Do all the possibilities of all of existence exist for us? Are there ways to navigate humanity in this day and age that lead us out of the possible extinction which knocks on our door every second by the darkness in which we swim?

I pause. I contemplate the feasibility that we can move into another direction than our past repetitions. What I do know, is that while I wonder if I can do it alone, the most important question really, is AM I Alone? I ask Existence to Show me more as I gratefully bow down to Greatness Before Me. When we consider how we are born, live and die alone as an individual person, are we really only about “me”? Or is there something larger, more grand in the scheme of life that is cheering us all on, wanting our evolution to be more than just empty space. Something that encourages unity over independence. I am not sure.

Something Created Us. Even if we are just a fragment of the Whole being brought through the human lungs. Maybe this adventure of being here on earth is an infusion of the Holy wanting to laugh in joy, and cry in the depths of sadness. Maybe the Oneness lives in us all, and also in the stars beyond with no expectation or outcome. What if we have the right to live as individuals, but also are awakened or not in a state of Harmony, Peace, and Compassion based on our soul’s yearning?. What if we are birthed to find a way to have it all? To feel that and to know that?

Today, I have learned to accept that I have no control. All there is for me in surrender. This body is aging. So much appreciation for it now. Placing my belly on the earth and feeling the solidity beneath. If I turn my head and look at the sky, I know that there is space forever beyond. I breathe in and breathe out. I feel myself. I gather my senses and say thank you. I try to live another day being the best person I can be. Even when the shadows envelope my sight. I keep thinking about the dance between me and the other. All the while feeling the mighty All singing in my veins. To live fully until I die into the Majesty. And wander into the Next.

 

Surrendering into ourselves in the Way…

I end. I begin.

 

Meanderings in the morning by Sharon Hartnett