February 13th
We take life too seriously and yet not seriously enough. We dabble at living, taking part half-heartedly, half-wittedly, with one foot in the past and the other in the future, neither of which exists in the present, and therefore does not exist at all. We live in our thoughts and dreams and not with our feet touching the earth. Mostly we are asleep, not conscious of what we are doing with our thoughts and bodies. We're somewhere else. We're on automatic, acting unconsciously, and we're quite skilled at pushing our awareness away, going for the end result, blindly following our desires and escaping from seeing ourselves, therefore escaping from life.
Then some little or big thing happens and we are jarred out of our sleep for a moment and we look around at life we haven't seen and haven't lived, haven't heard and smelled and touched. And suddenly we can feel life vibrating with intensity of color and light and music and love and beauty, which is always there right at our fingertips. When we step out of the past and future and open our eyes to what is happening in the moment, we see our life is not separate from ourselves.
Late at night the wind blows strong and fierce. Earlier in the evening there was crashing rumbling thunder followed by huge bolts of lightning in the western sky. Now there is only the force of wind whipping around the house.