Sabbatical Days...

Surprisingly, this week opened up several “sabbatical days”  in my new experience of “life as sabbatical” – days of quiet inner rest, getting in tune with the Oceanic Rhythm of Life again, moving intuitively and spontaneously, letting the days unfold, meeting each day as it presented itself, without agenda – without should haves, or should not haves – or resistance to what was, but allowing each day to be what it was, moving me through the day, trusting that Life would move in the way it needed to.  And it did…

I started reading a wonderful book by Jeff Foster that is well worth the read, called: The Deepest Acceptance: Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life.  Not surprisingly it is about accepting our life experiences no matter what they are.  But more than that, it is that Life ItSelf (the Being that we are deep within) accepts every experience, including all our feelings and emotions, no matter how we label them.  Life circumstances are already deeply accepted at the depths of Being Itself – the Ocean of Consciousness.  The experiences of our lives are like waves in that Ocean, and are never separate from that Ocean. In that sense, it is about awakening from the illusion of separation from the Ocean of Being that we all are – that deeply connects us all…

This view, which I have heard many times throughout my “spiritual” meandering, is now being heard as if for the first time, and changing my orientation to life and living.  The more I read, the more I realized that *everything* is deeply okay – no matter what the life experience is. That even though our surface life may be painful, filled with challenges, with fear, anxiety, depression, grief, anger, sadness, and dysfunctional families J, those feelings, experiences, and families are just waves on the surface of the Ocean of Consciousness. And ultimately *everything* is allowed, is deeply embraced by this Inner Oceanic Living Consciousness of Life. The waves are not separate from the deep Oceanic movement of Life, but are, in essence, the Ocean ItSelf moving through life.  With this realization I deeply relaxed, letting go of resistances to life, and slept well for 3 nights, instead of fighting the waves.  I began to get a taste of true freedom - no longer fighting with life…. And yet emotions and feelings continue to move through, like waves.  Sometimes I contract as if to keep them away – then remember - “everything is deeply okay.”

As I was being absorbed by this new awareness that “everything is deeply okay”, no matter what the circumstances, I felt the Heart of Love began to open up, ever so slightly, revealing ItSelf for just a few minutes – just enough to catch a glimpse of a larger Love.  It was an all-encompassing, non-perosnal Love for *all* life, all of humanity, and the dance of Life that is being played out here, even what we label as “darkness.”  It is a compassion for the struggles of humanity, which is part of the dance, without being affected by the struggle, or the need to fix it.  It’s more a deep open space of Love that allows everything to be; allows us to be who we are…

In knowing that “everything is deeply okay” there is only a deep bow to life, a deep honoring of life, a deep regard for life, an awe of life and the way Life plays Itself out here.  The  *Essence* of LIFE is living ItSelf in form.  And the miracle is that it’s all deeply okay, however it is. 

“Everything is deeply okay.” I keep repeating these words like a mantra, which takes me to deeper levels of peace, awareness and openness to life. As I feel the truth of this more deeply, I relax and find myself living life *from* a  deeper place of Inner Being that just IS – spacious and open to all of life experiences - where everything is embraced and loved just the way it is.  This is freeing…

~

“Life cannot be good or bad.
Life simply is,
appearing as all there is,
what we label as
good or bad…”

“From a place of deep acceptance of the way things are,
in seeing the inherent perfection of life itself,
one is still totally free to do what one is moved to do:
to help, to change things, to make a difference.

It’s just that our actions are no longer coming from
the root assumption that reality is broken
 and needs to be fixed,
and, underneath that, the assumption that
each of us is separate from life.
Any movement that comes from the assumption
that life is broken will simply perpetuate
the disease it wants to cure.

Acceptance is all about seeing reality,
seeing things as they actually are,
not as we hope or wish them to be.
And from that place of alignment
with what is,
all creative, loving and intelligent
action flows naturally.”

“Great freedom lies in fearlessly facing the
darkness
and finally coming to see
that the darkness is inseparable from light.”

All quotes: Jeff Foster
From: The Deepest Acceptance

~

Photo: Shadows on a Wall