Sitting here, I was meditating and pondering
the inexplicable mystery of it all
How some people are not ready to embrace
the beauty that is before them.
Then I began looking at my own life.
What was it that I was still resisting?
Patterns of behavior that were highly predictable,
because basically they had stayed the same, for ages.
What made room for change? So often a crisis.
A situation of pain.
A challenge
Where no other choice existed,
Save to finally bring into play that which was waiting to be done.
Waiting, waiting, waiting to do
the things I said I'd be doing years ago.
I looked again. Underneath it all was this strange unease.
This "having to do."
This "having to accomplish."
Sure, there were always bills to pay,
clothes to wash. Always kids to shuttle around, and if not kids,
then my own projects which still kept alive my own childlike joy.
Suddenly I saw that it was a weird, agreed-upon sense of urgency.
Brought on by Kosovo. By the dying of Zooplankton in the sea.
By coral with strange viruses and infections.
By the ozone hole.
By the environment deteriorating and more cars on the freeway.
It was almost as if everyone had made an agreement:
Things weren't quite right, and whether the response was to fight,
or to flee, there was a sense of subliminal crisis.
Debt. Health issues. Strange, slightly-askew relationships
with my fellow human beings.
Wanting more money and freedom.
I examined my own life. First, the relationships.
Admittedly, there were
some which weren't actually "flowing."
Yet they were clearly moving into places
of better communication and increased riches.
The riches of friendship were subtle, less based upon material benefits,
than the nourishment of emotional and spiritual communion.
There was a degree of physical engagement, too,
but lovers were really in a class of their own.
My primary focus was on that large and somewhat shapeless group of
people dubbed, "friends." Once I looked at the degree of reciprocity,
the amount of flowing communication—or lack of—it became almost too easy
to clear the decks of my own mental and emotional confusion.
I had often been attracted to people who weren't capable of giving back.
Either I was trying to prove something to them, or I was trying to get
their approval for my own needs and gain. Or worse, I was trying to fix them.
Try, try, try. The best friends have an easy flow of communication.
The best friends loved me, not because I did more, but because they
sense my core, the best (and least-forced) parts of me.
This was, and still is, a difficult lesson for me to integrate.
I am already loved. For my being—for who I am. I am already
loved for myself, not for my doing. That weary cliché, "We are
human beings, not human doings," becomes, daily, ever more evident.
Somehow the message got confused, that in order to be loved,
I had to do more.
As if I had to earn my love by doing, instead of simply being present,
being reciprocal, and simply showing up, focused on the present. There —
or should I say, here — and not upon the resumé of a projected future.
The first crucial step is to take a deep breath, then NOT buy into the
collective unconsciousness of worry and urgency. You heard me right —
that unspoken agreement by friends and colleagues, lovers and family,
that we cannot relax into a place of trust and knowing, because
there is simply too much that is wrong with humanity as a whole.
I say, balderdash! This is just added confusion between "doing" and "being."
There's an effortless place. A place wherein you need not "buy in"
or purchase the psychic undercurrents of "dead and dread."
Enlarge and magnify your understanding of effortlessness & flow.
What are you resisting, & how could you make it easier?
Know this: Half the battle is in the battle.
Can you imagine a world where each day isn't already pre-programmed
to be a struggle? This deceptively simple way of looking at our lives,
examining the world and universe we live in, applies first and foremost
to our friends and loved ones.
Friendship flows with a spontaneity and a fresh delight that reminds us that,
Yes, Virginia, it IS actually cool to be here in the physical body...
The key to effortlessness involves reciprocity & sharing.
It really is that simple.
It doesn't mean that you should reduce your life to "quid pro quo."
It does mean that you should eliminate relationships in your life
which don't give back.
Phase-out so-called friends that don't honor you and who don't give back.
Eliminate work & job choices that don't enrich your sense of self
& service to others. Reduce time wasted
which doesn't enrich the growth of your creative soul.
Which isn't to say that friends who reciprocate don't go through times and
periods of challenges, and are always there whenever you wish they would.
It's simply clear that genuine and lasting friendship involves a joyful sense
of camaraderie & sharing, a delight in communication.
It's like that all-too-rare awakened lovemaking.
It isn't choreographed. Isn't hurried or rushed. Certainly isn't scripted.
But somehow it makes the perfect plays and surprising moves of wonderment.
The only puzzle left is a simple one: how can i get my arm free?
And how, too, can I free-up my love of life, and free-up my time,
and loosen my tie, and take several deep breaths, AND REMEMBER—
That there are advantages to being here, and not on the other side.
....Because angels, for all their wings and perfectly mousse'd-hair,
don't get to make love as we do. And SO WHAT that they never
have to go to the dry cleaners.
Angels don't get to hear a concert by Lilith Faire, eat sushi,
or volunteer to actually play the cello at a senior retirement home.
Beloved, you are my angel .... You and you and you.
It's still a miraculous place, this magnificent turbulent world
which we're all so freaked and stressed about...
Welcome to the planet, my shining wondrous soul.
(Copyright 2000 by Darius Gottlieb - No reproduction without express permission from the author)
