Hey,
So good to share this time and space with you.
Take a couple of deep breaths,
Be here,
Live now.
I read something recently about how we as humans are eternal predators.
Always searching,
Scanning,
Fixating on the next thing to hunt down.
Might be a bigger house,
A new job,
A better body,
A richer,
Significant other.
And what it was saying is that if we catch whatever it is we're sure we cannot live without,
Well,
How long before we feel compelled to dash after the next bit of prey?
And the next.
That way of life can leave us panting for more.
It isn't that going after things is wrong,
It's more the continual state of chase.
Like a cheetah,
If we dash after this,
And then this,
And then this,
We are sure to end up as so many people I know,
Exhausted,
Weak,
Spent.
And when we live like that,
It can feel like there's this trail of carcasses behind us of the coulda,
Woulda,
Shouldas,
Or of the things that we're sure we had to have.
But once we got them,
Meh,
I often feel like that back home.
But the longer I'm here in Japan,
The more I feel like things inside of me are opening,
Loosening,
Softening,
Settling.
One of the main reasons this is true is because so many of my demands back at home aren't in play here.
I get to choose.
And believe me,
I understand the privilege of that.
And yet it's opened up for me this possibility of choosing with more intention.
And especially choosing our ways of being.
So if we don't want to live as predators,
What other choices are available to us?
So as soon as I asked that,
A multitude of possibilities came to me,
And I offer them to you.
So one question you might live with is,
Do you want to live life as a line,
Or a circle,
Or both?
Or both?
Can you,
Like a beautiful empty cup,
Welcome all that is?
Doesn't mean you have to like what's happening.
But can you receive,
Can you hold,
Can you trust that you will know the next best step?
What if you lived in a way that was closer to being a horse?
What wide fields and wild grace might you find?
What if you were a deer?
What untamed atlases,
Inside and out,
Might you find,
Might be calling to you to explore?
When I was here,
I saw a statue of a Buddha,
So still,
So rooted,
That it had grown three moss freckles.
Freckles.
What are the ways that you can find to be still,
To breathe,
To root down and center,
To let that beautiful living radiance fill you?
And of course,
There's always the moon.
To be a body that lives by its own rhythms.
Yes,
Sometimes full,
Sometimes empty,
But always radiant,
Ready to live,
Light,
And shine.
