Waking Up
……..Spring is the great reminder to wake up. This week I have begun to hear the first birds arriving in our mountainous area…saw the first Robin -bob bob bobbin around. It’s too early for flowers in our immediate area…but there are signs appearing that daffodils will soon show their beautiful yellow smiles. In our part of the earth, everything is waking up. Spring is a metaphor for all of us – as the promise of Spring never fails…no matter how bleak the winter has been- there are no circumstances that will keep Spring from bringing its gifts.
As human beings, we choose to bring our gifts or not – we choose to be awake and alive – or consumed with the issues of the day. Being awakened has come to take on a connotation of effort – or of dependency on a process or a set of beliefs. Some of those things do assist…study of how our consciousness responds is informing, hearing about the great masters who seem to have accomplished this, holds out the models and hope. For me, there is no substitute for simple intention…the intention to be aware of the beauty in each moment – of the feeling tone of love no matter what- of the quiet meditation and being able to see beyond just what my crazy mind produces. All of those and more, provide great moments of waking up.
When we are lost in our thoughts, plans or agenda, we miss the moment we are in…one of the great gifts of Eastern wisdom is to be in the present …to listen to a deeper intuition of what is all around us-the hushed tones and whispers of Spring. Waking up means knowing who you truly are – beyond your personality -or your accomplishments- beyond your lineage or definition. Waking up means you see life in a new way.
For me I see signs of waking up everywhere – having a new perception of experience -examining with compassion – all that I and others find ourselves experiencing. Socrates said an unexamined life is not worth living…Spring reminds us to Look – where there was snow -there are snow flowers, where the trees were bare, buds now appear-where there was the silence of snow – there are birds singing because they can.
The concert begins – lets join in and wake up to the Spring in our hearts!
