Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Essential Essence

Each day I awake, inspired, feeling an intense passion for living life.
My approach is that of beauty, harmony, and tranquility. I paint a glorious picture in each moment of each day, full of wonder. In a loving appreciation of this gift of being; the very essence of love, life and living.

I pause.
Often.
I take a moment.
For how long?
Shall we count using numbers?
Use structure to apply meaning to nothing and everything.

A minute can seem a year. A month like ten. Or they can happen by in a millisecond flash. As much ‘time’ needed for the wonder around me to take hold in allowing it to tantalize every sense. This love I feel for living, learning, being; as simple as walking a path, with an idea of one’s direction and a destination, acquiring and releasing what may or may not be needed along the way.

What shall we encounter along the way? What tools, skills and knowledge are needed? One must do, to be. One must be, to do. And speak and listen, to hear. Learn, to know. And then understand while understanding to know and thus learn. It’s an existential organic circular experience. This living life.

And O those unforeseen unexpected places, happenings and people…a lovely present surprise. Such a pleasure to be alive and allowing oneself to be open to the full spectrum of anything. For anything can happen or be. Our perception and imaginations creating realities. And to understand and realize we are fully responsible for all our choices. If life is stressful, it is because we are allowing it to be. If we are unhappy, it’s best to examine oneself to understand why. Something we are doing or not doing is not fulfilling or nurturing. We must always be a gentle lover of self, others and the world around us.

To love oneself, one must realize the truth of self. A mindful examination of human nature and the effects of parental nurturing upon us. An awareness that ‘this’ can become ‘that’. To change, to adapt, a keynote of survival and happiness. Life does not remain in stasis. Many are drawn to this, the repetition, habits. It provides an anchor. Words anchor meaning in human minds. But those words we use to attribute these labels to ‘describe’ and communicate can be a gross and misleading error. They create a black hole vacuum, which we place upon ourselves and then others, an expectation to submit and define the meaning of that word label. And beyond those empty words and labels, we form a judgmental opinion, based upon a perception we choose, of its worth and value to the definition of our imagined realities. If one chooses a way, the definition chosen will define it.
Let us examine those of the material world and their counterparts. If one owns things. Falls in love with them. Desires them. Allows those things to own them, they will never be satisfied or happy in life. An easy example, making money, it does not yield happiness. Only the want of more more more money. And to what end? To trade it for other lifeless material objects to which they have and allowed others to assign a value to. Perceptual justification giving them false life. And these static objects, while tangible, they give us nothing of real and lasting value in return. We do not learn from them, they are not mindful or aware, and we cannot interact with them in a truly meaningful and heartfelt manner. Often those that follow this way see themselves, everyone and everything around them as a commodity with ‘higher’ or ‘lesser’ value. And to place no value on anything breeds the same contempt in the opposition. They value nothing, not themselves or others. Both become fatalistic, suicidal or outwardly project it on to others becoming ‘American psychos’, in both respects. Is it possible to be moderate? For most people, to abstain or go to excess is far easier. The extremes require less thought, effort and heart.
And the conclusion I have drawn is simple. It’s been said before by many others and maybe you. To love is what gives value to our lives and the experience of living providing a true exchange of emotion, intellect and physical interaction with the world around us. And here I am. In joyous hope/fear learning, knowing, understanding and reflecting upon the sorrow and the bliss. The diametric opposites being one and the same. For everything is everything.

If I did not know sadness, how would I know happiness? Peace and war? Love and hate? Hope and fear. And the hope/fear manifests in us in many ways when a need for change occurs. A too routine mind resists it? Resistance is futile when change is afoot. And it is, always. I feel and see in others that hope/fear of change. They ride the merry-go-round and are unwilling to comprehend how when where to get off. My heart and soul aches for change. A drop of water connected, circulating and navigating the currents of the oceans. I feel the need. I yearn. And understanding this, I look. I hold hope/fear as a magnifying glass carefully examining myself and the world around me to understand cause and effect. Reaction stemming from action.

I hold myself still or move ever so slowly, maintaining composure and creating a center of calm from within to without to assess it all truthfully and honestly. I gaze all about me, seeing the chaotic beauty, with child’s eyes and I understand. I live life in open wonder. I live life as play, recognizing that I am a speck, a grain of sand. I embrace…me, and it, and others and a way, at peace, content. And I Start Begin each passing moment, falling in love, and smile.

by Nichole Hastings