There is so much more to a human life, possibilities we are normally unaware of, innate gifts we might bring to the world. To learn what they are, some of us have to be broken: confronted by something that compels us to surrender. Until then, we may have been reasonably satisfied with our lives, content with our own point of view. But when we’ve been humbled by storm or earthquake, illness or shame; by loss or just the ordinary process of aging, grace comes, and with it, opportunity after opportunity to deepen our way of perceiving, so we can ‘hear’ with more of ourselves.
Then, we learn to give the larger life our whole-bodied attention. We ask in the moment, What now? and listen with all our faculties. We dare to follow what allures us. This is the relationship that matters now: to move with the deeper movement ‘of the earth, of spirit, of the unknown’ in an unbroken intimacy with life. In this communion, we live in time and eternity intertwined, one day, one moment at a time.
Filed under Alignment, Allurement, attention, Awakening, awareness, Balance, Consciousness, Creativity, Intimacy with Life, Intuition, Whole-bodied attention by Anne Hillman
SUMMER 2012 – ONE WITH EXISTENCE
Love is not a feeling. It is an energy that unites. Love joins us to existence by that which is deepest in us. This is the intimate relationship that matters.
At this instant, a baby bird flies onto my windowsill, his silver down blowing in the wind like a gossamer shawl. Perched there, alert and posturing like he owns the place, he stares me straight in the eye, turning his head left and right in abrupt bursts of energy. I stop to watch the tiny creature, then, realize what I’d just written, and shift gears. The bird’s appearance is an example of what I’ve come to call ‘punctuation,’ a cue to reorient myself to Presence, to Unity, to the One—whatever you call the mysterious field in which we’re deeply rooted.
Punctuation is how Unity shows itself to us, comes sailing into our everyday world and surprises us. It intersects our ordinary perspective and puts an exclamation point at the precise moment an important theme has emerged: in writing, in conversation, or in a fleeting thought. Slightly different from synchronicity which may occur at longer intervals, punctuation is instantaneous—a lived experience of being One with life.
We sail into the arms of Unity when we turn away from the digital connections that anesthetize us and find ourselves enlivened by our vibrant connection to the earth and its inhabitants, and to the larger life—to Love. Or when we make meaning of such a moment that points to patterns transcending our own concerns, yet may be vital to the collective. Noting punctuation isn’t ‘primitive thinking.’ It is awe, and combined with thought lends wisdom, depth of meaning, and multiple views of reality that honor a much larger Self.*
*These themes are further developed in the forthcoming fall issue of Kosmos Journal
Filed under Love, Uncategorized by Anne Hillman
<p) <div=””>Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
*See more in “Taking Root: An Unbroken Intimacy with Life” in the Fall Kosmos Journal
2013 Three Upcoming Retreats:
Toronto area, April 19-21 An Unbroken Intimacy with Life, A Weekend Retreat
Madison WI, 3 or 5-day options: April 23-25 Taking Root ~ A Depth of Intimacy with Life or with additional days, April 25-27, Depth Perception ~ The Sensation of Light
Artist, Marci Graham,“Radiance” from The Cosmological Powers of the Universe Series |
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Filed under Alignment, attention, awareness, compassion, Consciousness, Creativity by Anne Hillman