life in the balance…9-1-20

Moving on my mat, the Tahoe earth held me last week.  When I rested, stretched out looking at trees and sky, a thought dropped into the empty space.  How does that happen?  But there it was: I’m smack dab in the midst of one crazy initiation into the eighth decade of life.  What a friggin’ absurd transition: decade change + pandemic.  I’m a meaning-making animal.  Maybe you are, too. What in the world could this juxtaposition signify? 
 
I continued to breathe. Soften. Open.  Until a precise teeter-totter balance came all over me, echoed in this ending line from Birdwings by Rumi:
 
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.

 
We spotted four eagles in our time there.  The teeter-totter of bird wings.  On one wing the vibrancy of life force moves through me, an omni-present will to live, dependable, energetically unstoppable.  Poised on the other wing? Utter willingness to let go, deep trust in the perfection of endings, curious lack of attachment to continuing this life.  Beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.
 
This foundational sensibility was paved two years ago.  Six months of dancing with illness instigated a realistic partnership with mortality. An alliance that fundamentally shifted me.  The confluence of this decade change with the no-end-in-sight pandemic has delivered mortality front and center again.  But this sense of will to live perfectly balanced with willingness to let go…that feels new and peacefully accurate as summer moves to fall. 
 
The teeter-totter of the seasons is on the horizon, fall equinox’s perfect balance of day and night.  All this corona trouble began at the other end, the last equinox. We’ve teetered together through two full seasons of trial and challenge.  I asked my Osho Tarot deck to offer guidance for the totter into these next two seasons.  And I drew the trust card. 
 
“There is a tremendous sense of exhilaration if we can take the jump
 and move into the unknown, even if the idea scares us to death…
the leap is the thing, the thrill as we free-fall through empty sky.”

 
Perhaps balance emerges side by side with trust.  What does it mean to trust my gut, hear the impulses that arise low down, align with them?  Can I trust this beating heart, tune into the whispery voice, not just the noisy one?  When’s the last time intuition guided me, do I trust those surprising thoughts that drop in the empty space?
 
I’m taking a couple weeks off from teaching.  Going to the Lost Coast.  Somehow that feels appropriate.  Sunday Sweat Your Prayers goes on without a break.  Thank goodness.  Wednesday Waves starts again September 9.  I’m excited, filled with that energetically unstoppable life force about what Majica and I are brewing up around that…more later.  Loving how we have travelled together through two full seasons and ready for Essentials to begin again September 17.
 
May this next week unfold beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.  Trusting that we’ll fly together soon….love, bella
 
 


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