If I had to guess, I think this would be the poem I have quoted and written about more than any other during the five years I’ve been writing this blog. It’s called A Ritual to Read to One Another by William Stafford.
Today this is the part I want to share:
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
I have dedicated my adult life to trying to BE Awake. But today it is clear to me just how very often this “awake person” has been asleep.
There are many metaphors in real life and story to help us see how easily we fall asleep: The famous poppy fields in The Wizard of Oz. Situations where staying awake is a matter of life or death such as hypothermia or some concussions. And as Marianne Williamson points out that is says in the Bible “a deep sleep fell over Adam — and nowhere does it say he woke up!”
Edgar Allen Poe writes about this dream state in a powerful poem. At the end of the first stanza he writes:
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
But by the end of the second stanza, he begins to question himself:
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Are we awake, asleep? Which is the dream? And what really is awake?
As I move out of this month’s heart-centered practice of BEing present, I am beginning to be more and more aware of what has led me to next month’s heart-centered practice of Wholeness.
We cannot really be present, we cannot really be awake, unless we recognize that Life is a Whole, a circle, an infinite cycle. This means that we can’t ignore the things we don’t want to deal with, sweep things we’re afraid of under the rug, avoid the tough stuff, distract ourselves from the challenges. We can’t because they will inevitably cycle back around and surface back up.
BUT we also can’t beat ourselves up when we fail. After all, as my favorite aunt used to quip, “We haven’t ascended yet!”
So to BE awake is to be, in each moment, as awake as we can be. To keep waking up. To notice when we are drifting off more quickly. And when we have fallen asleep, to wake ourselves up with kindness and compassion and then keep waking up.
Yes, the darkness around us seems to be deep. But each time we awaken a bit more, we awaken to the Light of Love. The Love that heals us from the mesmeric lie of that Love can’t heal, that we are doomed to stay asleep, or that our world will never wake up together.
Because TO BE AWAKE is to see the world as a WHOLE and all of us living in Love together. To be awake is to be in the place where healing already IS. To live Love is to be awake to the healing Power of Love.
Love = Awake = Light
Light = Awake = Love
To practice being awake with kindness and compassion toward ourselves and others is to #LoveViral!
And this is how Love Heals.
To listen to today’s heart-centered practice, see below: