A year ago, I left Spirit Fire for a personal meditation retreat and sabbatical. Isolation, emptying my mind, and understanding more of my heart called with such power that I was packed and gone within three days. It was completely spontaneous and was blessed by the kindness and generosity of several people. A gestation later, I returned.
I returned with clarity as my foundation, with emptiness as a pretty constant view, infinity as the known, and therefore the first-hand knowing of all possibilities. In touching into the vulnerability of my heart, the delicate beauty of others and life blossomed all the more. The well-being of all beings was practiced before I went away, now it is breath itself.
There is a challenge born from this womb of awareness. It is that with the coarser layers of self no longer insisting a self-referential reality, one is left like the “hanged man” of the Tarot temporarily upside down and content in that emptiness of self not being what it/one used to be. The freedom experienced as a result only goes away if one knowningly and willingly imprisons oneself again in a contraction of thought or with labels or judgements. As old mental patterns try to exert their feeble nature, now a visceral recoil happens inside: there is no self, I am not these contractions of mind or emotions, nor is anything what my old contractions declare those things to be.
My life purpose remains the same: serve others, teach, Be. But maturity as this radiant limitlessness is not expressing yet. Thus my being is like a second gestation, as if a further birth is needed or is to come. Then I will know what to do with this more awakened mind, this constantly erupting heart, and this throbbing peace.
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Related Posts
- A Journey Within series (written during the retreat)
Wow!
How kind, Anne!
…”My life purpose remains the same: serve others, teach, Be. But maturity as this radiant limitlessness is not expressing yet.”… We are singing the same song. As frustrating as the ‘wait’ can be, it’s nice to know there are more people in choir. 🙂
Yes, indeed, Renate! And let’s keep singing the songs of Light and One Life!