Have you ever wondered what it would be like to close your eyes and dissolve into everything and nothing, cell by cell, atom by atom. Have you ever wanted to feel yourself disappear unnoticed while silently observing bodies move from this quantum space to that. If I draw my eyelids down and go deep inside my breath, my untethered consciousness goes where it will. That world is so deep and so wide. Like the breath itself I sense the inhale and exhale, but there is no perception of edges, no tangible surface, no place to hide. Entering that space feels like the moment you sink into your favourite armchair after a long day of work, when the mind realises it no longer has to hold it together, and the body responds with a long, slow sigh. The day's endeavours are over. It's your time now. Close your eyes and breathe deep. Feel yourself drawn into the allness and oneness. Peace. Stillness. Complete. This moment needs nothing but this. Holding. Floating. Bliss.
Why then do I look down with pity on those elderly folk who have permanently slipped into this world. My head cocked to one side from a distance, sorrowful eyes touching their heads nodding in sleep, hoping it's not something I can catch. It's funny how a mass of tangles, sticky plaques, and misfirings cause the personality I have lived alongside for so long to start to disintegrate before my horrified gaze. I can almost feel the panic in the outstretched dendrons trying desperately to cling to each other like children being torn from their mother's arms. There's a moment that comes though isn't there, when you see the hands go limp at their sides, and the resignation of their fate pulls them deep into inky waters. We don't know what they see there or who they've become. But at times they bring snatches of recovered memory files to the surface, of times long forgotten that seem more present than where they are now. 'I want to go home' they shout from the chair they've sat in a thousand times to read their favourite magazine. 'Where are the boys?' they fret to the stranger they nursed at their bosom and comforted after their first day of school.
Once that milky film descends over their eyes and they seem somehow untethered from the reality we think is real, I wonder what they see. How does it feel to stare at hands that tremble with rebellion against the signals from your brain. To step out of the door and find yourself in a foreign land populated by blank strangers who don't know where Margaret lives. What a tragedy it seems to us young folk - caught between not wanting to die, and not wanting to live either.
And yet, though it hurts to see them hurtling into the abyss of anonymity, what unexplored worlds lie beyond the vacant stare, the jumbled words, and the condemnation of the diagnosis. Is there something more beautiful to discover than the body suit they chose to wear this time around. What if I close my eyes, breathe deep, and follow them now as they tell stories of the pranks they played at school. Dive deeper and hear them recount the times they fell in love. Float up again and see the moment they first held their newborn child in their arms. Watch their face light up like fireworks as they recall the time they won first prize. Up here I see only decay, decline, the loss of a place in the only world that matters. But down there, following the breath to the depths of all they are, there's the spray of the ocean, mosquito bites, cocktails on the beach, boys they regret, and friendships they thought they'd never lose.
Perhaps it's not until we lose our connection to the material world around us that we sense just how much there is to being human. At first we feel that we are losing ourselves, losing our place, fading into a vast sea of nothingness. But what if that's the moment that we truly find ourselves. When we allow ourselves to be carried away by the waves of the depths of us. Those parts are never valued or given time to express themselves. But what if the veil falls when the mind gives way and what we see is the truth revealed. Maybe I'm not the good person I want others to see. Maybe I'm angry with the spouse I've shared time with over countless grudgingly made meals. Perhaps I've always felt chained to my sense of duty and am filled with resentment that I couldn't find a way to break free. Or what if family life has ground me down and I often dream of stepping through the door and letting my feet just walk, walk, walk into the sunset. Maybe I want my boss to explode so I don't have to pretend to care about his ego. And sometimes when I'm tired and angry I want to drop to the floor and scream and shout at how unfair life is.
Why does the truth scare me so much. Why does my internal world make me so angsty. Will you still love me. Will I still have friends. Will I have a job to return to so I can pay my bills. Maybe I am clinging to all the wrong things. Take a moment with me and feel it now. Open your fists, release your grip, stand tall, fling your arms out and your heart open wide. What spills out. What words or songs come. What forgotten parts of you flutter forwards like clouds of butterfly wings. Can you feel your mouth twitching into a smile. Can you feel the tightness at the back your neck let go. Can you feel sunbeams on your face. Allow your many lives and experiences to crowd forward and fortify your soul. It takes courage to leap into the arms of Spirit. But wouldn't you rather leap of your own accord, rather than being pulled down into the depths by your own despair. Take a deep breath, dip one toe, then another. Full inhale, hold, then let the wholeness of the exhale take you to the wondrous bounty that is the real you.
Namaste.