Fragment 18 — Clouds in the sky
When you can't face the world, what do you do?
The sky was beautiful.
But I couldn't look up.
Have you ever felt like that? Like you're not ready to meet the day. Full on. In all its grandeur.
At this point, I'm supposed to give you the yogi secret to turning yourself around.
- The grounding technique
- The breathing regulation
- The nervous system reset
- The gratitude list
- The Stoic philosophy I live by
But there is no practice. No philosophy is great enough. This is life. There is no place to hide.
And sometimes we need to hide.
I feel ashamed of it.
I look up. The sky is as blue as just about any sky I've seen. The clouds are feathered into shapes. It's tempting me to call them angel wings. There's that transcendence...desperate to stand closer to the sacred. But it's an imagined sacred...the one in my head.
Anywhere but here. That's where I keep shifting to.
I also sense that in some way I'm addicted to the weight of it. The sadness, the anger, the frustration. It feels real in a way the sacred does not. Which means I don't have to move beyond it.
Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā
A mantra my Buddhist yoga teacher introduced me to. Going beyond the beyond. For me, it meant going into the fire and out the other side. It had weight to it then, but it felt more charming and less threatening back then.
School pickup. In my ignorance, I think the day has moved on, but the Universe never hangs up the call.
A mum tells me about her five-year-old boy's homework. Finish the sentence, "The Sun shines _______________". She expected a straightforward, "in the sky", but instead he said, "in my eyes".
The sky again. Not transcendence now, but a moment. A lived moment. A blink and you'll miss it revelation.
I nearly missed it. More preoccupied by the day I was imagining than the day itself. Presence. Standing firm in the day. On the ground beneath my feet.
Presence.
I'll meet you there.
David (Manos)
As always, you know where to find me, guys.