It's Time.

*I have gone back and forth on posting this.  This came to me last night and I had to switch on the light and fervently write it down.  In the morning light it seems harsher and my fear of what "you" might think kicks in.  And yet today, as I read posts and stories of the courageous Martin Luther King, I find myself unable to Not share.  Please know that I don't write this for a general audience.  Please read this as if it was a personal email sent directly to you.*

There is an entire realm of existence for which we have no words.  This does not mean these ways of being do not exist or are any less important than those we currently choose.

New Age gurus and science yahoos and everybody in between, I'm talking to you.  I'm talking to us.  It's time to stop searching and start sinking into - and stretching beyond - where we already are.

You - yes, YOU - do not see that there are ways of feeling, ways of being, ways of moving through your day that are just as accessible to you right in this moment as those you are choosing (or those you feel are being forced upon you).

I hope to awaken something within you via these words.  Because if you are me and I am you, I am tired of letting myself get away with this sleepwalking.

Can you even imagine everything that is going on in the world right now?  Can you even imagine the feelings that are being felt?  A mother just held her dying child.  Right now.  Someone is experiencing their last few hours on earth - one person knowingly as old age creeps in, one person unknowingly as an unfortunate tragedy awaits.  That could be you.  Someone just experienced an orgasm; someone just washed themselves in a river; someone just broke out into a fervent, gut-wrenching cry; someone just sat down at a cubicle to start a long repetitive day.

Can you even begin to imagine that all of this effects you?  Can you understand how you (your thoughts, those you are having right now) influence all of that?  Can you understand that your responsibility is to yourself first and foremost - to awaken to awareness of all of this and the connections?  Call it love, call it energy, call it God, call it whatever you want.  The word is not what it is, so a combination of letters don't really matter.  The understanding, the experience, the ethereal beyond the words does.

How do we feel?  How do you feel?  It is time to feel ALIVE, damn it.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. 

Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. 

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

-Howard Thurman

I don't care if you work a 9 to 5.  I don't care if you quit and celebrate working in your p.j.'s from home.  I don't care if you have kids or not, are thousands of dollars in debt or living free of that burden.  I don't care if you have health problems that limit your mobility or run 10 miles every day.

No more excuses.  Do what you need to in order to feel alive, to be aware that every living soul around you deserves the honor of doing the same.

There is simply nothing more important.

I've found this is working for me:

Getting my body healthy so I have the energy to carry myself throughout the world.  Practicing yoga to constantly remind myself of the connection between my body and breath and that which I am looking to reconnect to.  Creative expression so I find ways for my messages to flow through me.  Gratitude for every bit of my life - even the stuff that seems to totally suck at the time.  Loving my human experience - the aches, the guilt, the anger, the daily grind.  Being open to the divine experience - even that which my logical mind says is absurd.  Focusing more on being that on doing - which is an entirely different way of living than I've been taught.

That is what works for me.  Try it if you want.  Or don't.  I can't tell you what will bring you alive.

I can tell you that IT IS TIME.  Stop searching for the words to guide you or the career path that will bring success or the web guru that offers unbelievable values for 100 steps that promise to change your life.  You already know what makes you feel alive.  Breathe.  Breathe again.  Gently smile.

Cry if you want, scream at the top of your lungs, run at top speed for a few seconds.

Fall, get back up, rest, race.  RE-Member.  Come back together.  See yourself in every person and being around you.  Allow "them" to awaken within you.  RE-Member.  Your thoughts create your actions create your history, your present, your future.  Re-member it all.

DO NOT FORGET.  Please, damn it, please.  It is time.

Move beyond these words.

FEEL ALIVE.