Awakening to Awareness
Penni Livingston
What does it mean to have an awakening?
A spiritual awakening?
To be awake? To be spiritually aware?
Are we all asleep?
What does that mean?
Do we sleep walk through our lives?
At what point does this happen?
Are we not still learning at higher and higher levels
or does sleep walking enter when we decide we have had enough learning?
Enough feeling?
Enough sorrow
or challenge?
Enough obstacles
to happiness
to health
to finding meaning
to fitting in
enough issues to deal with —
What does it mean to be enlightened?
Am I enlightened?
What lights me up?
What makes me think I have a higher consciousness?
A connection to what we label as Divine?
How can I use this Divine nature?
to counter human confusion,
lethargic timidity, war,
misunderstanding
anxiety, depression, existential angst,
dismay with the world, with our fellow travelers- be gone!
Oh to find contentment in the moment
satisfaction in the longer now
Awareness overcomes the numbing routine, so-called normalcy
recognizing the feeling of futility yet the necessity
of engaging in conflict
with others and within ourselves, we pause.
undermining and attacking our collective story harms the collective
and the individuals in the narrative of life
that is here today, gone tomorrow, and oft unrecorded.
How can we change the narrative for the good?
To wake ourselves,
to awake all that sleep too soundly
without disrupting identity?
Do we not all yearn
for
freedom of thought
freedom from harm
freedom to choose
freedom to change
freedom from feelings
freedom from illusion
and from disillusionment
fragrances of grace
gratitude galore
dormant understanding aroused;
yet work beckons. . .
feels like a trap with sharp metal teeth cutting off my limbs
as I try to escape the ramifications of not doing the work
set before me -
but ramifications for who
and do I not count in the equation?
Is there not an equation of elegant escape?
Of excellence that allows shifting
without wobbling?
Giving Birth to babies long ago
taught me that transition does not come without labor.
Why must the labor now be with pain and feel so in vain???
when shall I chance upon myself
unconfined, unconcerned, uncontaminated by interpretations
detached from outcome
detached from history
even my own nature
what I know
what I think I know
unburdened- yes that is what I want to have enough of
like having an un-birthday every day but once a year.
unburdened every day while still connected
and not falling into the rabbit hole of illusion-
a real unburdened un-birthday.
Overwhelm tries to take my freedom from anxiety
tries to trap me in a loop of limitations
to bring inner crisis, self-made but with the feel of reality
misery does not need my company or yours
self made prisoning is not our destiny, ever.
This we should fight with all our might.
Human constructs are made for our education and entertainment, ey? Maybe.
Then what of pain and suffering?
What of disease: mental, physical, societal, planetary?
What of the critical mass that weighs us,
submerges our motivation, inspiration, our very soul, our humanity?
The thought of ever-present Ecoside disturbs my attempt at enlightenment.
Bobbing my head above the mist, I have to ask:
what illusions have I created?
what illusions do I believe?
what illusions can I awake from?
Right now. Let there be light!
Let it be in me; let it be me!
And what of the grandest illusion of the I
that I that I believe in
How can I be less impermanent
less to and fro
not just come and go
like the people and events I have witnessed
and been blessed by or harmed by?
are we not seemingly tossed to and fro
for a greater cosmic reason?
An impersonal cause for growth but not cancerous growth
spiritual expansion of our real selfhood, perhaps.
Oh joy in the small things-
especially the birds
a call from a friend
a grandchild
photographs of children and pets
memories of love
an uplifting poem or song
a new insight
a moment of peace
a safe landing
standing with trees
flowers blooming
reading a good book
standing on lovely land
feet in sand
hand in hand
seeing Life as grand
Finding Home
in Pure Awareness
No judgment
no work undone
no work to do
awake in the dream
even if
just for a moment
