I feel the rustling of the earth as outside the dawn awakens.
Sleep fell so swiftly upon me as the full moon watched over and with a new sense of soft inquiry my eyes flutter open. My awareness rustles with the sounds, colors and shifting environment around me. The morning presents itself to me, as my awareness awakens with the dawn.
In this moment, as my awareness shifts from my inner state of attachment to an interconnection with what is around me, I feel a different state of aliveness. An aliveness of knowing simultaneously what is happening on the inside and the outside of the container that I perceive as me.
This awareness is scintillating and soothing, clear and not completely definable. I am aware of all and nothing.
My awareness flutters and swirls like the newly arising birds that sing and dance just outside my window, tuned as well into the mystery of awakening.
It is in the awakening of the dawn that I can explore the awakening of my awareness. It is in the awakening of my awareness where I come closer to knowing the true sense of who I am…if I am who at all.
I begin to wrap myself in the dawning of this awakening. In donning my awareness, I welcome the awakening of this harmonious interconnection with all that is around me.
It distorts my view. I become disoriented as it wraps around me.
I am afraid. All that is familiar is disappearing before me.
I am now isolated in its grips. It presses in upon my weary bones and tests the strength of my very constitution.
Somehow I find the courage to endure its press upon me as it softly whispers…”trust me.”
And just when the weight feels too much to bear, I surrender. I surrender the need to know what lies beyond. I trust that the weathered framework that is me will endure.
And then the winds shift and rays of sun seep in. My surroundings reappear with some familiarity and yet a brightness and clarity that tunes my eyes to seeing what went before unnoticed.
In uncoiling from this temporary isolation, I see that I am still here. I have withstood the pressure in the mist of the unknown.
All is brighter and inviting now as I embrace this new vision and carry on.
I certainly don’t claim to have any part of this whole dying thing down. But I have seen enough family and friends make that transition to understand that it is not in the clinging to this life or the wallowing in the departure that brings peace. It is not in the anointing or in the fighting that we pass on but in the releasing…the letting go of the story, the belief that we are only of value in this living physical form, the fear we have somehow not been or done enough, and the pressure to continue on in something that has drawn to a close.
I believe we always have the choice. There can be fanfare and drama or quiet and stillness. Those left behind can wail and wrestle with their loss or
be happy for the soul that returns to the light, which I believe allows the departed to float more freely, untethered to the strings of our emotions, fears, and needs in this temporal space.
We need not believe in “life” after this body, but we can be sure that we are more than this body. We can be grateful for the space this body provided for us to play and learn – whether just hours or days or many, many years.
We all have within us a mysterious longing to be free, yet we spend little time preparing for the opportunity to run freely when the gates are open.
One thing that is becoming increasingly clear to me is that it seems the way to die may be to live in love, to surround ourselves with those who are willing to hold the gates open for us, and let nothing hinder us from feeling whole, content, and ready to run.
