You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with [someone], and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating… Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death.
Anais Nin
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.
Rumi
We all know what it was like. The world was alive once. When we were little. The trees whispered words. Animals spoke to us with their eyes. Playgrounds could become castles. The stars somehow told us we were special. Life could speak.
The magic wasn’t imprisoned in childhood. We’ve all had adult moments when we’ve “come alive.” Wonderfully lost in our work, our creativity, or a kiss. Time both stopped and was set on fire.
It happened as well in moments of alignment. When our inner life and outer life fell into step. We were finally “us.” Everything was clear, and enough.
There it was in the flower too. Actually, in so many simple things: freshly baked bread, blackberries, a deer standing still staring at us without blinking, our children laughing. For those fleeting moments, we lacked nothing. We felt gifted beyond comprehension. We knew what “rich” really means.
And it’s not that these moments of awakening don’t still happen. There’s just something about how we’ve got things organized that places a fog between them and us. As Aniais Nin says, we believe we are living, but really aren’t. It’s surprising actually – how easily we let dullness sink in, how often we allow life to be muted.
But there are always those memories. That whispering tree. That magic kiss. That moment of being true to ourselves. That priceless taste of blackberry juice on our tongue. They can be brought back. Yes, we forget what it feels like to be fully awake and for life to be fully alive. But forgetting means we can remember. It means we can help each other remember. And remembering opens a door for us to find our way back.
So maybe the message this month isn’t simply, “Awaken!” but also, “Remind!” We need to tell our stories so others remember theirs. We need to take each other back in time, so we can fully inhabit our present. It’s no small thing. On our own, we are so easily convinced being wide awake was a delusion, so easily fooled into thinking that life never really felt that good or seemed so clear. But with help, we wake up. We remember what it is like for life to shimmer. And for us to shimmer too.
