I was speaking with
a friend of mine recently about something that we discovered was a very
sensitive and touchy subject for each of us.
There was even a point in our conversation that she said to me, “Girl, don’t
even go there…” It was in that moment that I realized the truth of the truth, we
were already there; past the point of no return. We realized the perceived finality of the
moment because our connection to each other was forever changed because we
moved forward rather than remaining frozen in some sort of suspended animation
of being our lesser selves. Rather we
chose to run boldly with an almost reckless abandon into the arms of the
reality of our greatest selves. From
this new and uncharted space, we begged the question of what is our friendship
and relationship based on, when we believe that we cannot talk about the hard,
messy, ugly, sticky and unbelievable things in life with love and still love
each other in the midst of it all? “We have gone past the edge” she said, and I
thought what a novel and yet noble concept for two people who think themselves
to be edgy, hip, real, grounded, deep and so on.
In going there, it
seems as if our great realization is that we do not become edgy until we not
only come to the edge, but ensue to live and love past the edges of cultural,
geo-political and spiritual normalcy. We
have to know from the most intimate recesses of our being that that that which
has already been defined is destined to be refined over and over again. Noting is really ever as it was, it is only
as it is in the now moment; just long enough for us to notice how everything
around us must change. This is where our
insurmountable individual and collective truths become nothing but the whole
truth!
We do not become
hip until we allow ourselves to be transported, transmuted and transformed not
just by the known essence of the highs, lows and trends of pop culture, but by
the mysterious unknowingness of the very present moment.
We do not become
real people until we become willing and able to step beyond the boundaries of
our own contextual lenses and exist in the land lost amidst the authenticity of
the story of another living being. As
whole and complete beings, this is our response to the call of being totally alive
and connected to creation. We do this by
telling and living our stories out loud in living color with stereophonic sound
only in the presence of those who deserve and are alacritous to receive us as
our truth desires. In order to find
ourselves in the company of love, we do not have to be brand spanking new; we
only have to be willing to be known as who we really are, rather than be
sampled by the material value of what we have and own. I want the world to lean in and draw up from
the well of my joy and gratitude rather than taste momentarily from the
decadence of my success.
We do not become
grounded until we know for ourselves the disappointing impact of an ungraceful
fall from grace and the spot-on healing touch that real reconciliation can have
on the soul of humanity.
We do not become
deep until we have waded into the uncharted depths of the tides of unrequited love
and find ourselves transported to the fresh shores of a not so distant hope,
only to emerge drenched in the reality that we are indeed eternally evolutional
beings who are impacting the surface of life for one another over and over
again.
The real truth of
my thoughts in this moment is that we do not become forgiven until we see ourselves
beyond the forbidden boundaries that have marginalized our very being and
living and that at last allows us invoke the miracle of first forgiving the
unfathomable without so much as a second thought. It is my belief that the foundation of the
profoundness of our living comes to us from the quiet stillness of the provocative
lyrics, rhythms and iambic pentameter of our common narrative. This, my friends is what sets us in motion
and allows us to truly catch fire for own sake and ultimately the sake of the
world that poises itself for the renewal of warmth in seeing and knowing us all.
If you take nothing
else from these words, know this; our presence is not small, accidental or inconsequential;
we are here in this moment for the sake of the world over, to love fully, to
see beyond the invisible, to hear the depth of the silent, to reach out far
beyond that which we think doable or possible.
My heart knows that it is just beyond the borders of impossibility that the
realm of true and total possibility in concert with our own level of
receptivity changes the course of our lives forever. So if you ever think to yourself or out loud about
not going there, I invite you to do anything but be still; I implore and
beseech you to take up from the place where you are and go boldly into that
good night and find the marrow of the joy of your soul and rejoice and be glad
in it! I leave you with one of my most
beloved Jack Kerouac quotes: “The
only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never
yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow
roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
