In every moment there is something to look at, something to feel, something to taste—a flavor in the atmosphere, a sensation in the body, the feeling of the air around you, the vague stirrings of awareness of your deepest self.
“Life is so generous a giver,” says Fra Giovanni’s Letter to a Friend. Yet there are times in a human life when we feel not abundance, but loss, not fullness, but emptiness. In those times, it’s important to recognize that waves of feelings are always temporary, even if our thoughts try to convince us otherwise. Sometimes it may be right to go into the well of grief and loss, and to feel whatever’s there regardless of what it is. To dive into the pure essence of feeling, without judgment, without listening to thoughts about the feeling. The deeper we dive, the more we are at the core of every human life—everyone’s longing for love, for happiness, for the well-being of those we care about. In recognition of that, our compassion expands and our felt unity with all life becomes more a part of us.
As we experience what is deep beneath the waves on the surface, we can become more skilled at recognizing that unity, and letting the felt sense of it permeate our understanding. We can become more skilled at remembering that states and conditions come and go, but our shared unity and the universal reality in which we have our life and being is always present. Through going deep within ourselves, we come to sense the quality of fullness and abundance that is still there, even during grief and loss.
Difficult times are far easier to navigate when we develop the habit of going deeply into our everyday moments and feeling deeply in our ordinary daily lives. When you notice a feeling of thankfulness, feel it more, and then even more. When you’re struck by beauty, let that beauty fill you to overflowing. When you cherish another, when you feel tenderness, when you look on someone with kindness, feel it with more intensity, more intentionality.
So many moments are precious and filled with the essence of life, but we pass them over, hardly paying attention. Learn to drink deeply of the precious moments of your life, and you will grow your capacity to taste eternity and feel the infinite. Some little thing that attracts your attention for a moment—the light on the wall or in a nearby window. The way a plate gleams in the sink. The pleasure of curling and uncurling your toes on a fuzzy carpet, or the warmth of your jacket as you gather it around yourself on a cold day. Feel into these moments, drink them in, take them into yourself—feel them, don’t think them.
You can grow your capacity to drink deeply from these moments, to imbibe them, to nourish your inner being with the ordinary details of the moments of your life. Even small sips, imbibed fully, will become part of you and grow your being. And that is your reservoir for the times when you need something to draw upon. Drinking as deep as you can, you become more and more a conscious participant in bringing forth the sacred energy that dwells at the heart of everything, that nourishes us all, and that will fill your life with depth and meaning. Like ripples in a pond, that sacred energy will spread further and further, as you come to realize a fullness and a generosity always there beneath the surface, regardless of everything that comes and goes.
© 2022 Shanti Natania Grace
Photo: Sun in the Archway, by Shanti Natania Grace
To read Fra Giovanni’s letter to a friend, go to https://gratefulness.org/resource/joy-fra-giovanni-peace/
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listen
hiding in this cage
of visible matter
is the invisible
lifebird
pay attention
to her
she is singing
your song
~ Kabir
Sushil Rao translation
Art: “The Great Family” by René Magritte
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