You Take My Breath Away

Last night I witnessed the most magical thing; the summer night sky twinkling with the light of what felt like thousands of fireflies. It filled me with such wonder and awe. A short, but booming thunderstorm had passed through the area earlier in the evening and now it was dark. I went out to get something from the car, happened to look up and found the sky glimmering in and out of existence. I stood silently observing for a little while, drinking in the beauty, until the list of “things to do” came crashing through my brain again. But I went inside retaining a little bit of that expansiveness that I had just a moment ago touched.

How many miracles do we miss each day simply because we are not present to receive them?

It felt to me like I chanced upon another dimension of existence. I was transported beyond myself. Yet how many other nights had I missed those very same fireflies? The fireflies sparkled many nights before, but I never saw them.

Because we are caught in our heads much of the time, we forget to relax back into ourselves. We forget who we are. Our connection with divine becomes obscured. There is so much beauty to behold. There is so much for which to be grateful. The beauty in the world is almost overwhelming. It is literally everywhere. One just needs to open up to it. You can take anything and if you "try" to give it love, try to see its beauty you will open to "each other" in profound ways. In reality, you are just reclaiming a piece of yourself that you had perhaps overlooked or forgotten. The world exists as a mirror to show you your own beauty. If something is ugly to you do you find yourself opening or contracting? What does it say to about you? Could there be "ugliness" within you? Are you seeing clearly? Are you able to be the space for whatever shows up? Take anything, a rock, a shovel, a chair, a piece of art, a red light, a spider, your toilet. It literally can be anything because everything is worth loving and you are love. Love includes all. It excludes nothing. We think that some things are worth loving and other things are not. But is that true? Examine it for yourself? When you give something love, you expand. Try it for yourself? People think that when they love someone or something, that it is the other thing that they love. And that is true to some extent. What they often do not realize is that the love is within themselves the whole time. We resonate with the outward flow of love through us. It is the contraction of love that often hurts. It is the closing down which is painful. When we surrender to the flow of love, when "we" disappear and only love is present, the divine is experienced. It is but the flow of the essence of ourselves towards another part of ourselves. Lila. The enlightened "know" that to reject anything, to resist anything, is to create suffering. It is to essentially to cut off the flow.

Experiment: Sit quietly for a few minutes. Pay attention to your breath or a candle or the sounds of where you are. After you have settled in for a few minutes, take any object in your surroundings and give it love. It can be something you love dearly like your favorite pair of blue jeans or something neutral like a stool, or something you don't like, like smoke. "Try" to give it love for a few minutes. What does that mean? Well, let your heart decide exactly what that means. As you give it love, observe your thoughts about that object as you bring love to it? Observe your own emotions. Try to bring your attention to your own awareness. Do you find yourself judging the exercise? Did it feel mechanical at first? Did it feel the same at the end of the exercise as it did in the beginning? Do YOU feel the same at the end of the exercise as at the beginning? Did nothing happen?

Again, as always, there are no right or wrong answers, only inquiry and observation.

Another way to open to the beauty of the world is through our bodies, through our senses. We have been given these extraordinary bodies which are capable of so much. So often our senses are employed passively. So often we do not bring our awareness to the richness of truly experiencing the world through these modalities. Instead, we remain lost in our heads. We touch things but do we really feel them? We eat things but do we really savor them? We see things but do we really even look at them? What is the experience of truly being with something? What happens to you? Appreciation, love and gratitude appear when you start using your senses. You can quickly short circuit your thinking mind by attending to any sense with your whole being. In fact, bring your whole self to anything you are doing and see what happens.

Currently I find myself thinking of the lyrics of the soundtrack to a favorite movie when I was a child, Born Free. It always made me cry. It always touched my soul. In particular, the second verse "Born Free and beauty surrounds you, the world still astounds" you is resonating as I again watch the fireflies majestically take their place in the sky tonight.

What was the last thing that took your breath away?

Opening and Closing

Awakening is the process of continually opening. It is the process of love claiming all. It is paradoxically already complete and at the same time blossoming. In my own life it is interesting to see the places that I contract. It is interesting to note the places where I am not open or feel a pull to close. It is interesting to feel them in my gut or throat or shoulders. Sometimes I will try to defend a mental position as if that position were somehow imbued with a little part of myself, and I guess to my ego it is. It is also funny when I can look back and think - how odd that I took that idea or situation to be so serious. Two places that have been wonderfully illustrious to me recently have been my relationship with my sweetie and my work.


Oh, yes, I got a job. It is very intense at my new job. People's expectations of me are very high. During the day I am often knotted inside, too much afraid of the ways that I might fail. One antidote of course, is riveting myself on the actual task at hand. If I am knotted, I am likely too focused on the future and not enough in the present moment. It helps to remind myself to dwell there as often as I can. Sometimes just the sipping of a cup of tea at my desk can remind me to come home.


It is also interesting, to witness my identity dissolving. The dissolution is sometimes awkward and uncomfortable. The contraction inside, the knotted place, is oddly helpful, it shows me where my ego is still invested. My ego still finds it important to be seen as an intelligent, competent person. It still fears failing and creates a story of "but what if. . . ." But who would I be if I did not excel at my job? The contraction is the gap between the truth which my heart knows and the pull of the illusion which suggests that I need to be special through my intelligence to matter to the world. Does this mean that I should suddenly stop trying to excel at work or that something is wrong if one is smart or any other "desirable" quality. No, not at all, it simply means that to the extent I tie my identity to those qualities, when I am so much more than them, I will be closed off and suffer. Remember, you are both all and nothing.


I am glad that I no longer for the most part make an enemy out of my contractions. Instead I try to let them be or embrace them with a little love. A little empathetic curiosity goes a long way. Don't make a foe out of them. They are signals that can allow you to open further if you are willing to hear what they have to say. With my sweetie, I have discovered perhaps for the first time, the real beauty of relationship. She is a crystal mirror for me. She reflects back to me who I still believe I am. If we "fight" it is the perfect opportunity for me to discover where I am not transparent. It is the perfect chance to see where I am still invested in again creating a story of "me" or in being something special or of being right. We defend ourselves because deep down we are trying to convince 0urselves of something. One only defends, or attempts to feel special or needs to be right when one isn't aligned with the truth that they are. When we are aligned with that truth there is nothing we need to prove. My relationship with my sweetie is such a gift because it gives me such a deep opportunity to open, or to see where I still feel my limitations. Where in your life do you contract?

So what is "open"? What does it mean? Well for a definition I suggest you check in with your own heart. It is a good compass for what is open and what is not. When I am open such a sweet tenderness exists. Open is the outpouring of love. It is connection with and compassion for. It is alignment with truth. The invitation is always there but I am not always courageous enough to rest there. But even still, all is well for, love claims it all. It never goes away, even if you are not open to it and remained closed at that moment. There are always more chances to open, to love.