I came out of a meditation today by slowly, so slowly, opening my eyes.
It probably took about 2 minutes to open my eyes fully.
As they were open I became aware of the play, the dance, of light and dark.
How the light and the dark are not separate, they’re not different.
Something filled me for a moment, bliss, a vanishing from my body, and in a breath I was there again. In a moment I was light, and in a moment the weight of my body was upon me.
The dark calls to the light to come and find him, she looks here and there, lifting things up, looking around the corner, and there he is. They laugh like children at being found, and then she says to the dark, close your eyes, I’m going to hide now. And the play continues.
Joy finds sadness, loneliness finds intimacy.
We breathe in, we breathe out, one into the other.
We walk deep into the darkness, we pull it around ourselves like a cloak, we wrap ourselves in it and we think we’re invisible. And there, looking for us, following the trail we unknowingly left, a spark, one spark. And another, another, until there is but a shadow, then the memory of that shadow, then the forgetting of that shadow in a light so bright.
He invites her to dance, she draws him out into being.
Movement and stillness, there’s giving, taking, opening, closing, tears and laughter.
Are these tears of joy or tears of pain?
Are these tears of longing or the tears of looking into your eyes and seeing love?
In this play there’s a place, a liminal place where one becomes the other, where they merge into one, and again, always again, they flow apart. And yet they can’t, they just cannot stay apart.
Here I am, she whispers, I know, he says, I’m right behind you. She turns into him, becomes him, he becomes her, they become each other, for a moment, an hour, a day. A rest in the space, a breath, and the play continues.
At the edge, at the depth, at the height, one is always there, at the rise, at the fall, at the release, at the climax.
This is our life.
And one of the greatest things we can learn, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children, is this dance.
This Flow.
This sacred tide.
It rises, it ebbs.
In every way.
It’s within us to know this.
Everything is within us, within this body.
It’s in our breath, inhale, inspire, exhale, release.
It’s in our pleasure, it’s in our pain.
It’s in our waking, sleeping, eating, cleansing.
It’s in our having, grasping, freeing.
It’s in our love and our loss.
It’s in this coffee I’m holding, from the first sip to the empty cup.
It’s in watching the sunset, feeling the peace, day blending into night.
It’s in feeling every lover I’ve had and the loneliness within me.
It’s in this heart, beating in my chest, that one day will beat no more.
It’s in being a man, just a man, and being the space that all of life flows in.
It’s in being a woman, and being the Goddess that gives birth to everything.
One flowing into the other.
And Love is always there.
