Life On The Edge

Two years ago I started reading Mark Nepo's The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have (2000).  There is an entry for each day of the year that includes a title, quote, essay, and meditations.  This year, with a few exceptions, I've pretty much kept up with reading each day's entry before I turn out the light at night.  It's interesting to note how the day's entry relates to what I'm feeling and thinking at the time.  This is the reading for November 10 ~

Life on the Edge
You are that which you are seeking.  - Saint Francis

When I feel lonely, my first thought is that you hold the key to my loneliness.  When I feel confused, my first thought is that you (or someone neither of us knows) is more clear, if I can only find them and get them to speak.  When wanting respect, my first thought is that it is waiting on the other side of some mammoth achievement I must devote myself to.  I try so hard to find what I need or want outside of myself, certain it is waiting for me somewhere just over there.

In the end, seeking only brings us to the edge of knowing ourselves.  If we never look inward, we tend to become experts at life on the edge, while seldom unlocking what all our seeking means.  We can become masters at climbing the mountains of the world instead of breaking trail to the center of our woundedness.  We can become masters at driving fast cars through the night instead of moving through the dark corners of our mind.  We can become masters at seducing strangers in the name of love instead of embracing the softer, less perfect aspects of who we are.

Seeking in the world has always been a way to mirror to us where we need to work inwardly, but seeking danger outside has always been a way to divert the soul's cry for us to take a genuine risk inside.

Meditate on something you are seeking.  It may be love, power, wealth, or the thrill of jumping out of a plane, or the recognition of being famous.

Now imagine that what you seek already lives within you, and as you breathe, hold what you seek before your mind's eye like a door you must enter if you are ever to be whole.

Inhale deeply, and feel what you seek as a part of your spirit that needs attention.

Exhale deeply, and though you may not know how, give yourself this attention.