Desire and Longing

What do you know about your heart’s longing for life? Late at night, between sleep and slumber, when our guard is down and we feel the vast possibilities reflected in the night sky, what do you long for? What secret desire wants to express itself through you? If you could be–just be–the truest expression of your secret heart, how would that look?

 

How different is that from the you who presents yourself to the world when the dreamy sleep falls away and you get up to meet the bright light of day? Where is that innocence, curiosity, awe that we started with? How many ways has it been stifled, beaten out of you, rejected, hidden? Do you dare to even know it? Can you remember? Can you feel it now–even if you simultaneously deny it–can you hear the whisper of it calling you back to yourself?

 

Imagine what it would be like if you could just let go, somehow, magically allow yourself to stop trying SO HARD to perform, to do the right thing, to be the person your parents wanted, society tells you to be, whoever this person is that you gear up and put on when you go out into the world. What if you could just let that all go? Just Be.

Just Be You.

 

What would that feel like? To express yourself as only you know yourself to be. Your precious, brilliant, beautiful self. We all have it. We all long for it. If you hear my words and EVEN FOR A SECOND recognize what I am talking about, then you can find a way to follow this voice, this desire, this gravitational pull, back to your essence. The truest, most precious, natural expression of you. And this gift of coming home to yourself is that you realize you’re not alone. You never were.

 

We are all connected, intertwined, vast fields of stardust dancing through the night sky. We forget, we get distracted, we shield ourselves and get lost. We hide our true nature for fear of being rejected, hurt, discarded. But the truth is that is happens when we cut ourselves off from our inner most SELVES, our essence, the fleshy tender center of our hearts. When we forget. We numb, we hide. It is part of the human experience. I think we all do it, I still do it, I did it this morning. But it is not real, it is just a distraction, a disconnection, a detour. And when we forget, when we feel separate and alone, we think we are the only ones who feel that way. We feel pain, we suffer.

 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is another way, a process of coming home to ourselves–and each of us has our own map, written just for us, with specific directions, instructions, scenic stops along the way. It is hidden, in the last place we think to look: in the center of our tender hearts.

 

It’s that voice, that longing and if we listen—REALLY LISTEN—it will take us back to ourselves, home. To connection, compassion, curiosity, beauty, LOVE. That is the true nature of every human being, no matter how far you feel from that right now, it is still true.

 

I know this process because I live it. I follow that voice, step by step, day by day. I use it like the North star, the ordinal point on my compass that tells me where to go, what to do, how to be me. For me it has a particular way of appearing. set into a framework and archetype that fits into my lifestyle, makes it fun, interesting, challenging. It appears as Ma Durga, or Saraswati or one of the stories of the Veda, instructing me or providing comfort to me. It is different for all of us. But at the root of it, it is the same thing–my heart calling me home to myself.

 

I am a very good listener. I don’t just use my ears, I use all of my senses, my whole body, because that is how this precious voice needs to be heard, felt, sensed. And I have found that when I open my body to listening, it’s not just my voice I hear – I can hear yours as well. I can hear the longing in your heart and I can see the precious, brilliant you that wants to shine unencumbered out into the world. I see it and I celebrate it!

 

I celebrate you and your true nature, and if you have forgotten, I want to remind you. Reflect your brilliance, amplify that voice. Help you re-calibrate your compass. I want to help you uncover your map, pack your bags with all the essentials you need for this journey of discovery, and send you out into the mystery. I’ll even walk with you for awhile. Help navigate the obstacles of this exquisite, messy, human life. Because we need each other. In this time, more than any other, to reach out to each other–be vulnerable, real, share our deepest hearts true expression with each other. With the world.

 

This is what will heal us, heal our communities, heal our planet. There is no time to waste, nothing more important. The time is now. Wake up, listen, feel, follow. Shake off the cage you have put yourself in, we put each other in. If you don’t know how, that’s ok, I can help you. Someone helped us, and that’s the point. It is so much easier for someone else to see the spot in the center of your back, or in this case the brilliant jewel in the center of your heart. I can show you – remind you, help you remember what you already know.

 

I’m here.

 

I’m waiting.