Dear friend,
The light was there all along, behind the banks of clouds. The room is illuminated, the body of the laptop is cold to the touch and the coffee in my cup is strong.
My five thirty am alarm broke into a dream that revolved around the purchase of a leather bomber jacket from a crowded pop up store in Dublin. The store was so crammed with people I began to feel stifled in there and pushed and elbowed my way into the street shouting ‘claustrophobic’ by way of explanation.
Out in the street I filled my lungs, the way I do in preparation for my meditations. Feeling the freedom of it. To stretch the lungs and savour the life in them.
From one dream to another.
Only this dream is much more stable. It changes, you notice, sometimes it shifts and lurches or blossoms and blooms, but mostly we don’t notice the change as it happens. It’s when we look back and reflect we see it.
How will life be on earth one thousand years from now?
What will we recognise? We’ll still be here. That’s my feeling about it.
Humans.
We’ll be more or less as we have been since the beginning of our species.
We’ll live on a spectrum of emotions from the highest expression of love and dedication to the most poisonous depravities of hatred and contempt. We’ll want those we love to flourish and, well, who can say if we’ll still be fighting or condemning ourselves and others. I like to think that more and more of us will recognise ourselves in one another. That the spiritual dimension of life will have broken through and become part of the day to day reality for an increasing number of us.
That more and more people will be living with an transformative interior experience.
Will there be contrast?
Sure.
We live in a dualistic universe. It’s a foundational aspect of creation.
I’m not speaking of a utopia.
My younger self wants that though. The parts of me that are idealistic and maybe also afraid, have a vague and scrappily conceived impression of a world without conflict. It’s like looking through tracing paper.
Better perhaps to commit to the courage of kindness. I’m thinking this morning of each moment as a bonus, extra time to be here and to get clarity on what I want for myself and for my world as I experience it. For each of us our worlds are made of relationships. The central relationship is the one we have with our self.
If I think of myself as a creative work in progress, with my hangups and character flaws integral to the pallet of colours I bring to this world. Right here now we have time to create and paint a day as best you can in this present moment.
And this evening other dreams will come.
It’s a lifetime’s practice just to be here now.
It’s kind of startling to realise how much of a day can get consumed by the mind. Like those banks of clouds that cleared overnight, emptying themselves, blown by the winds.
Peace is found inside.
That’s where to look.
Take a moment.
One conscious breath.
There’s a greater power at work than our minds can understand.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey