Live Intimately
“The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world — we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.”
-Joanna Macy
What if Life and Death arise together? What if the dying of a way of living is happening as the birth of a new way of living is happening simultaneously on our planet—-now?
I was at a talk with about 150 others yesterday followed by a breakfast with an intimate group of about 16 others. Both events were with Joanna Macy. Joanna is one of my teachers, an elder on the path of awakening and a force of wisdom, compassion and love in our world.
From the discussions, I am sensing gratitude well up in me. Gratitude for Life and Death. Gratitude for the intimate rub that lives in the space of their co-arising. Gratitude for all the moments, personal and collective, that are being lived fully intimately at that very junction. Gratitude for the courage, beauty, grief, and longing that emerges from those moments. Along with the Mystery. Gratitude for all my comrades, near and far, my students, my teachers (human and other-than-human) and myself; all who choose a moment to live fully intimately. Directly experienced. Intimately. And then do it again, and again.
Check out this great blog post about a recent event at Whidbey Institute. This speaks words in alignment with my own personal heartmind about climate change . http://insidepassages.com/2013/05/03/tapping-into-dark-optimism-whidbey-institute-climate-conference/
What if the very depths of darkness that are present on our earth are exactly the conditions that humanity requires to be in a place to step forwards and co-arise the very ‘opposite’ energy necessary to harmonize and create a dynamic balance? What if the depths of darkness (the shadow of our personal and collective consciousness) needs to be intimately experienced at the ‘rubbing’ point? That very confluence of Life and Death. In order to allow the death (and therefore the integration) of the shadows into a new Life? A form of Life that always lives intimately–moment to moment. Interconnected. With an open vulnerable heart.
The confluence of Life and Death
That rub of Life and Death co-arising is always there. Fully sense each moment. Intimately. Directly. Sense the void/space that holds Life and Death. It’s only as far away as each moment of change you allow yourself to sense. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, pause, breathing out, pause. In the pauses sit the rub, the change, the transmutation…. to a new moment of Living. WIll you choose to live intimately?
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
Please join Carrie at Feldenkrais and Qi Gong in Seattle for an upcoming class or workshop. She can be reached at 206-459-1773, http://www.movementfromwithin.net or feldychi@comcast.net.