An extraordinary thing happened one day not too long ago. Out of the primordial ooze, out of the ancient everything…you were born. You took a breath and claimed this life. You became a unique and blessed gesture of creation, to live and move and have being.
The chance of your birth is so infinitesimal that it boggles the mind. The sperm-egg combination that came to be you had a chance of one to ten or fifteen million. And of course the chance of your mother or father being born was equally small, extending back through your ancestors, making the possibility of you so rare that it cannot be measured.
You arrived.
You arrived with a particular body and way of being, immediately met with stimuli from the world. And so you began your journey of feeling and experience, thought and understanding, being taught what your world was teaching you and navigating what your life was telling you.
The knowing of our original source, still present in each cell, is soon overlaid with the mechanics of being and the logic of material life. We often forget that we are all connected, and bit by bit we see ourselves as separate, not only in space and time but in being and spirit. We then feel alienated from the source of all life and assume we have to fend for ourselves. In enters fear and the need for power to feel in control. In enters comparisons and competitiveness, marking of territories and systems of security. In enters distrust and denial, distortions and defensiveness. All in an attempt to feel good and whole..…..something we were when we were born, something we do not need to make…something we need to recognize.
You are unique. You are worthy. You are conscious being. You are embodied life.
You are also with life, a response of life intermingled with all life.
When we come to that recognition, when we allow the awareness that our breath is an exchange with trees and connected to the majesty of wind, when we open to the understanding that the pulsing of our blood parallels the flow of rivers and streams, when we come to know the truth of our interdependence and, so, our belonging in all life, our response-ability to all life, then we are nourished and emboldened by two things:
One: that the gift of life is ours to recognize and honor, and
Two: the wisdom of well being for all life is in each of our cells and all around us in the messages of nature and intuition. When we summon the presence of being and allow the feeling of interconnectedness, we are helped out of our loneliness, gentled away from our confusions, lifted from our fear and guided into our joy. It takes humility and courage. It takes gratitude and acceptance.
You are not alone. You belong. You are all that ever was and ever will be in a momentary dance of life.
(First part of a reflection series entitled "You Are Free")
