Words of Wisdom

This liminal space that Eckhart is referring to is quite familiar. It's a betwixt and between place I have often written about on this blog. Trying to articulate my experiences of how it feels me. It can get very uncomfortable and disconcerting. It's been described by some as like being on a bridge or lost in the woods or adrift on the sea. A bridge that it is not possible to simply get off. On one side there is nothing attractive for you and the other is not yet available.

The bridge/sea/woods that reconnects the fragmented self to wholeness, to oneness, is contemplation. And yet as we step on that bridge, the path often disappears beneath our feet. Uncertainty and not knowing fall like veils across our eyes. The mystery deepens to the far horizon. Our vision takes on different forms and images that we can not easily decipher. 

In this moment, in this space, we make our departure into a presence that can only be experienced and participated in rather than reasoned, controlled, planned for and conceptualised. This is where our creative spark can leap forth and guide us. This is a place of death and dying as well as renewal and rebirth. The ego has to be transcended. Our awakened selves has to discovered. Borrowing a line from Rumi, contemplation, offers us a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground we are upon.

I am learning not to try and push or fight my way out of this circumstance I find myself. Nor to zoom up into my head and analyse. Rather I have to place myself in a contemplative stance. To be patient and learn to wait. Wait until the moment to move is presented or invited.  As much as I wish it, I am after all not in control of this one.

Getting into a contemplative stance is not passive. For me it means making an active choice to explore an embodied world.

To be out in nature, 

take a walk in the woods, 

canoe down the river, 

write a poem, 

bang a drum, 

feel the sun on my face,

hug a friend,

paint a picture, 

move and stretch my body, 

pick apples, 

plant seeds, 

cook a meal, 

kiss my partner, 

gaze up at the moon,

lit a fire

make pancakes,

meditate,

it's a list I keep

searching for ways 

to

add to!