A Heart-Beat at a Time …
Vulnerability.
Some say there is an armor necessary in Life. Consequences. Precautions.
Why throw this to the wind?
Wrapped up in the arms of our many-colored coat, in the threads of our lost fabric, there is remembrance of sweeter moments. Moments when we cared. Cared about life passing by. Cared about the “filler”, the glances, the minutes of time undocumented, where we found life brimming with substance.
Feeling.
We pass our days lost in lineups, traffic, phone menus. We think we are “going somewhere”. But in reality, we are going nowhere. Just ’round and ’round in circles. Faster and faster. Emptier and emptier. Traveling towards imaginary “goals”, victories, accomplishments, appointments, acquisitions.
And life goes on, a Parade of Colored Dreams. No one slows down, very few stop.
Except when death comes knocking. Or disease. Or Trauma. Or you wake up one day and realize your life amounts to nothing, your friends amount to nothing, the pieces of paper on your wall – which once announced your Greatness – are simply faded artifacts of a past dynasty which is now equal to Toilet Paper. Used Toilet Paper.
And who are you? You, the Magnificent Adult who has survived 3 marriages, high-school, children, cancer, middle-age, flat tires, obesity, cardiac failure. You who prided yourself on your Kingdom, your Castle, your Retirement Savings Plan. Those who knew you as “accomplished”, those who would laugh at your jokes and applaud politely when you paid the restaurant tab.
Those good friends.
Those friends are all gone now, and when they do show up, you see their cracked masks, their feeble opening lines, their well-worn excuses. You see their compromises, their mundane dullness masquerading as “interesting routines”, you see their resident emptiness lingering under dry smiles, wrinkles, sand-dunes beneath tired eyes.
So, you are a sage of the open road, a connoisseur of day-dreams, a taster of forbidden romance written on pages of used pocketbooks. You have coins and car-keys to jingle, credit-cards to wiggle. Bank accounts to ponder, investments in foreign lands beyond your control. You have everything, and on the same breath, you realize … you have nothing.
So, your whole life has passed and you’ve perfected the art of impressing the relatives, but you have missed the value of your own breath. Your own life. Your own substance. Unknown. Unexplored. A gift, sitting under a deserted Christmas Tree, unopened. Dusty, decrepit. Dead.
Or is it?
There is a fortunate truth.
Substance never dies.
(Well, if it did, we would die with it.)
So, the Act of Fortunate Substance is alive at our very core and sustains us through all this. All this misery, all this victory, all this noise, silence, indigestion, feasting and famine. And this Fortunate Substance, this best friend-of-friends, still remains waiting, waiting, patiently, humbly … beneath all we claim to be.
Will we feel one day, will we see one day, will we be one day. Will we? Can we? May we?
This lost hope of this forbidden dream of this abandoned childhood of wonder – this one that still glows beneath all the National Flags, all the Soldiers and Armies, all the Matriarchs, Patriarchs and Victory Marches. The dream still dreams. It dreams of us. It dreams of oneness, beauty, the silence of immeasurable sound, the dazzling and cleansing light of a million suns that radiates the fragrance of the Place We Came From.
And the Place We’re Going To.
Slowly, quickly, a day, a breath, a heart-beat at a time.
We wait in line.
And the Journey of Journeys … has this quality … far below the surface … that one could only describe as …
SUBLIME.
Read Morelife itself
The ways the human spirit moves, is a flag in the wind. Tibetan prayer flags high on the forbidden plateau. Proud national flags in gardens of guns and roses. Tattered artistic flags with beautiful threads of gold and silver, arcing gently in soft winds.
Flags in sunset, flags in sunrise. Flags with curious symbols; flags with ears and eyes. Flags freshly born; flags ready to die; flags at half-mast, full-mast… flags that reach for, and long for the sky.
