Today on Love Awake,
Our call to presence.
Most days I can sense a sort of dull ache in the background of my life.
As if a puzzle piece is slightly out of place or a sliver is sitting under my skin.
I have watched and witnessed this subtle sensation running like a script on repeat over the years.
And I've come to know its company very well.
But have only now begun to understand the message it has been carrying.
The only time it is not with me is when I am captivated in the present moment.
The only time the gnawing is absent is when I am engaged with what is touchable and alive in front of me.
Presence has been asking me to arrive fully into the wide open clearing of what is real.
Into the eyes and arms of those in the room with me.
Into the unseen breath and air that silently fills me with life.
I realize now that I have been being called into reality.
Into the flesh and blood and bone and breath that lives in and around me.
The small ache has been a way of calling me into my life.
I've been being called into my life not just by one toe,
But with my entirety.
Presence,
This word,
Overused and rarely embodied.
Yet paradoxically the home of what we are committing our lives to finding.
Happiness is the highest desire of humankind.
Yet somehow seems to be the most elusive of pursuits.
Somehow leaking like water out of our cupped palms.
We have been looking in all of the wrong places by searching beyond when really it has been waiting here below our feet.
In the soft sigh of our most beloved in the pearl of dew on the morning grass.
It has been waiting here in the most simple of things that live vibrantly alive before and within.
Would you believe me if I told you your happiness lives alive and well right here in the room you are sitting in?
Try for a moment to arrive here,
To stop crawling out of your skin and into some vision or ideal or future.
Watch as your genuine presence begins to transform the environment around and within you.
Feel the relief that floods places you have never been able to touch.
And how light begins to flood over surface and self.
Remember this when you are wanting to leave,
Escape,
Plug into,
Ignore or busy.
What is really being asked of you is to sink feet,
Heart,
Teeth.
Deeper into the details of your ordinary existence.
This is the answer.
To arrive every fiber,
Every molecule of you into the body and life you are living.
Here and now is where happiness will overwhelm,
Saturate,
Spill,
Engulf,
Sustain.
Where your cup will be refilled and refilled again.
Where it will never slip through your fingers.
Here and now is where gaining and grasping becomes stale and where value and worth and wealth and learning and true discovery thrive.
It is in the here and now.
In the life you seldom dip one toe into.
We are rarely in true reality.
We are always plugged in,
Connected to others,
To ideals rather than self and earth.
This is how happiness continues to elude us all.
How we remain in an almost constant state of starvation.
We are not aware of the gold hidden in our own backyard for we do not bother to make deliberate effort at digging into what is actually real before us.
Briefly we become present.
Briefly we engage.
Deeply,
Thoroughly,
Genuinely.
And in those brief encounters,
In those rare moments,
We leave all illusion and fantasy and are gifted with something tremendous.
We are gifted this overwhelming and visceral gift that begins to spill from the eyes and hearts of those around us.
From our own pores.
And from the space and place we are in.
When we become present,
We begin to sense this gentle,
Most nurturing frequency living in our own bodies and in life's great life force.
When we tune in to what is truly here and now,
We are flooded with endorphins and tenderness,
Faith and acceptance,
Communion and forgiveness.
We enter the real life found in the present moment and it is more beautiful than any goal achieved or any external gratification given.
It is the hearth,
The place and source of our authentic happiness.
It is truly challenging to come home,
To come down from our heads and into our hearts.
It is truly challenging to be in the quiet simplicity of what is real.
It requires great strength and courage to step out of doing and into being.
But it is not impossible.
It is entirely possible to remove,
If only for a few moments,
The thorn from our side.
Our happiness is available and waiting for us in our divine presence,
In the most simple of things.
It is all around us at every moment,
With every inhale,
With every step forward.
It is there.
It is not outside of you,
Not out of reach,
Not an ultimate destination.
It is veiled in our presence of the now,
Of the as-is.
And in order for us to be in that happiness,
It asks one thing from us and one thing only.
And that is to stop choosing to live in the static of the in-between.
For the first half of this meditation,
I don't want you to close your eyes.
I want you to keep your gaze soft and aware of the room you are in.
Take three even,
Not forced,
Breaths.
Just become fully present to the gentle rise and fall taking place naturally within your body.
Notice what is surrounding you,
Sharing the same oxygen,
Sharing the same reality.
Take a moment to love what surrounds you,
What is alive everywhere you look.
Place both hands over your heart and repeat,
I am here in this body.
I am home.
I am here in this body.
I am home.
I am here in my life.
I am alive.
I am awake.
I am here in my life.
I am alive.
I am awake.
I am alive.
I am awake.
Watch what opens within you and around you when it is tended to in this way.
When the present moment is loved.
Watch what joy comes bounding forth from your loving gaze and attention.
Watch what meets you here in this place and how quickly it comes to confirm your arrival.
How quickly it comes to shower you with the gift of your life,
Shower you with the gifts of simple presence.
Now close your eyes and picture for me someone you deeply love and that can be yourself or someone you are journeying in this life with.
Can you name for me all of the colors hidden in their iris?
Can you notice how they shift and move and open when they feel they are really being heard?
Can you notice how you can pull them into love with your gentle attentiveness?
Can you feel how you bind and bond and harmonize those in the room with you by teasing out the tiny details of their great beauty?
Can you notice how when you truly arrive in the room with yourself and your life and with others,
The immense power you possess,
The opening and connection you effortlessly create,
The intimacy you weave between souls and space,
The love you begin to paint the walls with?
Your presence is your power.
Your presence is your freedom.
Your presence is your happiness.
The more we arrive in the real real,
The more we encourage and unleash the beauty and truth of our souls.
The more joy becomes our foundation.
We are the architects of our greatest desires and happiness.
We hold all of the powers of creation in the gaze of our divine presence.
The nectar of what is most valuable to us is here in our moments,
Each strong one after another in unique delight.
These moments with ourselves,
This is the substance we are looking for,
The happiness we deeply pine for.
Our suffering can survive only when we are disconnected with the present moment.
Come awake now,
Dear one.
Meet me in this room.
Let us hold each other's soft palms against each other's cheeks and hearts.
Let us breathe our happiness into form in front of us.
Let our unaffected presence help us grow a happiness so grandiose it will swallow all knots of discontent and unrest.
Together we can enter overwhelming joy and rise above our pain and judgments and criticisms.
And enter a community built of grace,
Unity,
Harmony.
Where we can each come to know and learn love's great relief.
By choosing to live fully present in our lives,
We can begin to change not just our worlds,
But the entire world.
Now remove the sliver from your heel.
And release you and your life into blossom.
