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One Night in the Woods

 

The following is a blog entry from over 10 years ago. It was at a point in my life where I knew everything was about to change in a powerful and fundamental way. Today, I find myself immersed in a wonderfully similar experience. What’s changing? I choose not to ask that question because I know it’s one where the answer is simply too expansive to fit into my conscious. So often we think that explosions of expansion (say that fast three times :)) come by, and through, thinking. They don’t. As a matter of fact it’s often the exact opposite. We cannot think our way into them because their very nature is one we simply cannot articulate with “logic”.

But we can feel the intoxication of knowing something amazing is about to happen and having no clue of exactly what it will be.

So what do we do? How do we step into the impossible?

This is the answer I received ……..

I often take walks in the late evening as a form of meditation. For me meditation is really about a state of awareness more than a physical activity. I have had the privilege of meeting so many wonderful people who have attended our weekly meditation gatherings who have shared with me how beneficial they have been for them and how much they look forward to coming each week. I always try to share with them that that “feeling” they experience at our gatherings is not unique to there. That experience of reacquainting themselves with that place inside each of us that’s at perfect peace and perfect stillness is accessible anytime anywhere. In those moments, among a group of people of like-mindedness, our shared energies foster a place where we can touch that easier. Very quickly our spirit remembers and the journey from outer illusion to inner reality becomes easier.  It is in the spirit of this that I present the following.

All there is is Love. It is the originator, the giver of life essence, and the ultimate destination of everyone and everything. All there is is Love.

So what is Love? Our culture has created a myriad of definitions and connotations of what love is. Mainstream media, religions, retailers, and even phone companies have hopped on the bandwagon to construct their own version of what they would have us believe Love is. Any many of us have bought into their self-promoting intentions. Love is not an organization. It is not a doctrine. It is not a philosophy. It is not something you read on the inside of a greeting card or watch on the late night movies our parents forbid us from watching when we were younger.

So what is Love? Here’s the secret. Love cannot be described. It cannot be communicated. It can only be experienced.

Love is death. Love is Fear. Love is rebirth. All there is is love.

It was quite late in the evening as I walked following my usual route which, as was my habit, concluded in a small opening surrounded by towering mature trees. In the center of the clearing was a small hill that obviously been man made and undoubtedly was a great source of pleasure during the winter as children would slide and tumble down it’s gentle slopes.

I would often stand on the hill and allow myself to simply feel. We spend so much time thinking and so little feeling. I had stood on the hill many times before and as I closed my eyes I imagined myself standing in the middle of a large amphitheater with the moon as my spotlight and the grass and trees as my audience and teachers. To our logical mind this makes no sense. In many respects that’s the key to understanding. There is a time and place for our “common sense” but there are also those moments when it simply cannot contain the experience that’s presented to us.

The past days and weeks had been an interesting one for me. With many new experiences, both internally and external, I had often allowed my mind to contemplate how and why my present, and future, were presenting themselves in the manner they were.

Then it started. It began as a tiny trickling of images, thoughts, and emotions but quickly grew to a raging torrent. My mind began to reel as it was engulfed with stimulus it could never contain or control. In what seemed like an instant my mind and heart were locked in a vicious tug of war. The gentle tugging in my heart that I had gotten used to feeling was starting to build and grow in intensity.

In that moment when my heart truly felt physical pain as the confluence of emotions, memories, hopes I dared not entertain, dreams I sealed so far away because they seemed so incredulous engulfed me like a flood.

In that moment when my heart cried out for relief. In that space outside of time. I pleaded to my creator and all of creation to take this away from me because it felt like my heart would explode and shatter into a thousand pieces. A still, small, and yet endlessly powerful voice said to me with words beyond my understanding “Then let it break.” How can this be? My mind was reeling trying to analyze and organize this seemingly life ending suggestion. My heart stretched and groaned as the immense pressure was continuing to build inside me. I shouted to myself to set it aside. This was crazy. I needed to resist. I needed to come back to reality. Why was I feeling what I was feeling? The thoughts and emotions were too fearful and beautiful for me to dare to allow them to fully enter my mind. And beneath the battle zone of thoughts and emotions raging inside my mind and body. The voice calmly said, “Let it break.”

As the moments manifested into what seemed like hours the battle continued. I would experience short periods of relief as they would recede further back into my subconscious and I would quickly gasp for air like a drowning man who momentary breaks through the surface of the water to draw in a breath of air in a futile attempt to save himself. Then just as quickly as they retreated they would assault me with a new wave of advancement and my heart would twist and writhe in pain

All the while the voice said to me “Let it break”.

In the din of the raging onslaught something began to change. Maybe it was the words that were said but looking back now I realize it originated from  the source from where they came. Something inside me buried deep beneath my thoughts and my emotions. Something so intimate that even now I cannot craft the words to describe it.

The choice was presented to me. I was standing at a precipice gazing down at a gorge that descended forever. It was a choice from which there would be turning back. Once I took the step that would thrust me into the unknown. A step that looking through my conscious eyes would shirley kill me. And yet I had a choice. Which voice would I listen to? The voice of reason that arose from years of indoctrination and programming. Or the still small voice that said “Let your heart break”. My mind twisted and contorted in agony as the desire to jump began to build and confront the pre-conceived notions and rules and does and don’ts head on.

Then in a twinkling of an eye it became crystal clear. Both were correct. The voice told me to jump. My mind screamed in my ear that I would die should I choose this folly. They were both right. If I jumped, and allowed my heart to break I would die. However, in giving up my life I would gain it. It still didn’t add up. Did not make sense.  But that didn’t seem to matter. Not now. In an act of surrender I spoke to whoever, or whatever was listening and said, “I surrender. I choose to release my heart and allow the raging forces inside it to shatter it into a thousand pieces.

And I died. And in that exact instant, as I watched the broken shards of my heart disappear into nothingness. I was re-born. Or maybe born for the first time. At that point it didn’t matter. At that point nothing mattered.

In that instance my heart transformed into that which cannot be describe only experienced. I was suddenly so much more expansive than the limiting perimeters of my physical body. In that moment I knew all things are possible. In that moment I understood a fresh and anew the illusion that separation was. In that moment I could feel the coolness of the dew on grass beneath my feet and at the same time I stretched into the vastness of space and touched the stars.

In our western world built on separation, competition, envy, and an assortment of self defeating concepts we have this innate ability and desire to accumulate, store and hoard. It’s understandable really. We live in a society that’s asleep.

I know that this is a direct assault on your reasoning and intellect but I share this with as much sincerity and integrity I can muster. Freedom does not come in gathering, hoarding. It comes in releasing. Everything.

The entire universe is conspiring for you. There is a power that knows no bounds that is available to you in every moment. You hold the key. It is the power of choice. By your choices you unleashed the awesome creative power of Love. After all all there is is Love.

Today I present you with a choice. For some this is exactly where you are at in this moment in time. For others this may be a prelude to what your future will bring. I’m not asking or expecting anything from you. Simply offering a choice.

And it is this. Do you choose to fuel your fears, live in a mind set of lack and not enough? Creating your future through toiling and struggling under your own power. Or do you choose to give it all up. Notice I didn’t say give up. I said give it all up. Release your dreams, your challenges, and your struggles. Just let it go. It can be scary. I know. But it is also a doorway to  a freedom that you’ve maybe never felt before.

Love is all there is. Love is Fear. Love is Power. Everything originates from Love. There is nowhere Love is not. When you choose to give it all up you plunge yourself into a sea of the same creative force that birthed the universes and cause each blade of grass to grow.

The choice is always yours.

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