Experiencing reality directly

Hello dear ones!!

It has been a long time since I’ve visited this page. I went back to work this fall as an academic instructor and outdoor guide for an Adventure Tourism Business Operations Program in Golden, BC.  As all working parents know, it can be a busy juggle to balance roles, schedules, kids, meals…. the mind becomes busy…. the emotions overwhelmed.

But I am inspired to share that my awareness of ‘the something that never changes’, regardless of external circumstance or internal state, has deepened.

So in any given moment, here’s how things might be going…. externally, there might be the lovely buzz of excitement that comes with work; moments of humour and connection with my students, and then others heavily weighted with pressure, overwhelm and stress.  There is almost always the fatigue of sleeplessness and constant busy-ness,  which is dangerous to pay any attention to because there is everything that my three beautiful kids need me to attend to for them…..Then there are thoughts about the human spirit, creativity, connection with nature and with self, intelligent capacity… and wondering about the impact our school system has on those things… so the arising of questions occurs around education options for our children…… I feel the intensity of all of this juggling, and all the deep joys and frustrations that we all seem to experience at this stage of life.

It is so clear to me as I write this that the fuel of all of this intensity is the deep belief in ‘myself’ as a central character that has control and has to figure out how to navigate intelligently through this time.

But to my great surprise and relief, the belief of a central ‘me’ that has to make all these life-changing decisions, is losing ground.  What’s taking over is the awareness of the conscious silence that I am. The presence that is simply always here and untouched by anything – is spontaneously and unexpectedly attracting my attention.  I don’t remind myself to ‘be quiet’ or ‘turn within’ – it is just simply what happens, often.  In this quietness, my mind falls silent and no longer seems to resist its lack of a job in this pure knowingness…. Fresh sources of gratitude, peace, fulfillment, and ease bubble up…

So there are still waves of anxiety, depression, a ‘trying to figure it all out’, joy, humour, connection… and they feel deep and of course can and do affect my experience, but something in me doesn’t buy into them as fully as I once did. I’m not afraid of these states – and I no longer put effort into trying to chase any of them away.  Their transitory nature (as intense as they can be) is so clearly secondary to the primary, unwavering truth of being.

This awareness takes me out of all the mental and emotional turmoil and places me intimately in direct experience with true reality.  In this way, I am able to operate with the fullness of presence, instead of operating with my awareness pulled into trying to put out all the fires going on in my mind.

Feels good to be here.  Especially when I forget and take those gruelling trips through those periods as an ‘identified me’….  it feels so good to come back home to the spaciousness of simply being fully here.

Peace, L.