To open your heart

I just returned from a 4 day backpacking retreat in the beautiful san juan mountains.  My feet are blistered, my hips are sore, my back aches.  And I wouldn't have traded those 4 days for anything in the universe.  Before beginning i set forth my aspiration to "get outside my comfort zone."  I had no idea what I was in for.  Incessant rain, biting cold, raging winds, roaring thunder.  And still we sat.  It was magical - 14 people, young, old, men, women, experienced backpackers, and those who were terrified of these strangers that were the surrounding mountains. I have such a deep appreciation for the minds capacity to be present under any conditions.  I am fortunate to have known and touched deeply the spaces in between...in between thoughts, in between breaths.  I feel like I'm old friends with the spaces where the clouds' edge meets the brilliant blue sky.  Often the spaces where fear and doubt fade and trust and calm emerge are missed.  How often are you so filled with rage it could tear you apart, and yet time passes and once again there is peace.  But are you there for this transformation?  Are you present enough to notice this transition?  The heart has the capacity to hold it all, as long as you are willing to be there for it all. 

Connecting with the wildnerness with these 14 beautiful souls helped nurture my trust in each moment.  I will never forget a friends wise words to me as I was filled with doubt and fear about an upcoming retreat.  Why am I doing this?! I asked desperately.  And the simplest response said it all... To open your heart...

What it means to be present

What does it mean to be present?  Quite simply, I suppose it means knowing what is happening while it is happening.  I once heard that being present is simple, it's remembering to be present that is the challenge.  I'm always a little bit caught off guard when in a random moment I notice my breath.  Almost as though I'm surprised I've been breathing this whole time.  It seems hard to believe that for the past 27 years, I've been breathing, and yet it has only been recently that I actually notice it, and that is only on sporadic occasions of mindfulness.  But when it does happen, when I do connect, notice the inbreath, the outbreath, the feeling of my hands on my knees as I sit, it is truly a gift.  It is really a gift to know where you are.  To know what you are doing.  It is a gift, but it is also a commitment.  Otherwise it is too easy to let it go.  To fill your mind and your world and your heart with something outside of yourself, until one day you realize you've lost yourself.  And in that moment of realization, there is the freedom in knowing that it is never too late to come back home.

The World Was Made to be Free In

"You must learn one thing. 
The world was made to be free in. 

Give up all the other worlds 
except the one to which you belong. 

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet 
confinement of your aloneness to learn 

anything or anyone 
that does not bring you alive 

is too small for you."

-David Whyte

I can breathe a little easier when I allow this possibility that the world we create inside our own heads might actually all be a lie.  The conditions. The expectations.  The struggle to make things different from what they are, even if it means hiding from our own self.  When I let go of the searching and just ALLOW, I can finally rest in a quite space where nothing is true, and yet it is all true.  I'll never truly understand why we try so hard, why we constantly manipulate our selves and our circumstances, all on the path for happiness.  Are there things in your life that hold you back? That keep you from feeling truly alive, and yet you struggle to 'make it fit' somehow?  Or you feel that is due to your own shortcomings?  In order to fully let go, there has to be a trust in our own self, and our own worth.  Only then can we let down our armor, and surround ourselves with those things that bring us alive.