May you be free
As I sit here and ponder my post today I am all over the place. Typically I speak to my mother on holidays, this morning was no exception. Today I heard about my parents’ plan to spend the afternoon with two of my siblings, nieces and nephews and I found myself reminiscing about family holidays growing up. Now, as a growing family there are new memories being created. Of course the poignancy of the conversation was taken to a deeper level when later I learned from a friend of someone’s death from a fall. She was out in the yard and fell, simply hit her head on something and died before her beloved spouse realized what had happened. Having worked in the trauma room in an ER I know too well how something seemingly as simple as a fall can alter the course of one’s life in pretty dramatic ways.
Knowing our lives are so precious and fleeting makes every choice hold so much more meaning. One of my favorite spiritual teachers shared this morning about her thoughts on declaring our independence. What she means by this is the ways in which we declare independence from the circumstances and situations which are not in alignment with the life we love living. Aspiration for freedom from limiting beliefs, anxiety and stress, and other concerns we hold onto as our “truth.”
In what areas are you seeking freedom and independence~ to expand your life and your love. What would it look like if you were truly free? What would you do differently today if you were not caught up in the belief that your current circumstances define your future?
What would you do if you knew today would be your last?
Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?