The Unspoiled Clearing

Soul Cards ~ Deborah Koff-Chapin

Today is Day 29 of my January Awakenings journey with Mark Nepo's, The Book of Awakening. It's hard to believe the month is almost at an end but I've enjoyed the daily focus this book has provided.

Says Rilke:

I am too alone in the world
but not alone enough
to make every moment holy.

What is the moment made up of but our interface with the muscular and evanescent now. For me, what Rilke is really asking is how to view every part of ourselves as holy, every aspect of our own being as sacred. I'm in the thick of some painfully transformative inner work and Rilke's quote touches me deeply. Because I cannot do that, cannot, no matter how I try, see all aspects of my being as holy. And the word 'try' is where all the contraction lies...I sense intuitively that effort is counterproductive. I don't yet have the eyes to see...they open through grit, yes, but ultimately through grace.

Mark goes on to speak of the two ways we feel the fullness of life, both of them arising from the authenticity of our relationships. One being from our love of life, the other from our love of each other. In our solitude we can discover the miracles of life, of breath, of what is simply arising. This is the reward of meditation, prayer and other forms of what I call sacred inwardness. They offer us the opportunity of going deep enough into the thicket of the self to come upon the unspoiled clearing.

That luminous clearing can also be reached by taking the huge risk to be thoroughly with each other. This is the reward of love, of compassion, of receptivity. But so often the obstacle to experiencing the fullness of either of these gifts is resistance, is ambivalence, is hesitancy and ultimately the fear of giving ourselves completely to them. Having one foot in either door, betwixt and between, is the deeply painful experience of loneliness and isolation. We all share it. In the same way we all share the capacity to bless the moment with the authenticity of our unveiled presence, to make it holy.

Meditation

Sit and let a point of loneliness that you carry rise to your awareness.

Breathe into it and feel which way you need to lean with it: into yourself or into the world.

As you lean towards one or the place your hand on your heart. Breathe with the tenderness of your humanity.