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The Dance of Existence

“Existence consists of life and death...

Thirty percent of the people love life and fear death.

Another thirty percent prefer death and avoid life.

Another thirty percent fear both life and death.

Ninety percent of the people suffer the tension that comes from ignorance of how polarities work...

Even though life and death are opposites, they are inseparable.

Preferences are futile.

Only ten percent have the wisdom to accept both life and death as facts and simply enjoy the dance of existence.”

—Lao Tsu/Tao Te Ching #50

An Epidemic of Busyness

by Johanna Atman

As vibrant golden oak leaves fall to the ground and become a blanket (comforter) for the seeds which sleep below, the cycle of life and death is never more clear. Everywhere, we see and feel and smell this mixture of vitality in the cold air and the last rays of light radiantly shining through the remaining leaves while the fading of the light draws us inward to the time of greatest darkness at winter solstice—the longest night and shortest day.

The delicate leaves of the Japanese maple suddenly turn from green to a fiery reddish orange so intense that an aura of glowing light extends beyond its physical body. Approaching the tree, my friend says she can feel its energy around her eyes and head. The sweetness and beauty all around us is the dying into darkness and the time of rest. The cells of our bodies experience this slowing down, changes in the temperature and decreasing hours of daylight. Yet most of us scurry around, busier than usual in our already too busy life! Just when Nature says “take a rest, slow down,” to gestate the new life of spring, all our extra activity seems out of balance. Perhaps we are like the red maple leaves ending the yearly cycle with one last passionate burst of energy before the stillness comes.

As the frenzy peaks we may ponder the question “What has happened to our pace of life?” Not only in this season, but throughout the year, we are “too busy” to experience our lives deeply or fully. I notice how succumbing to the pressure of “time” deprives me of enjoyment of the task at hand. Even something I chose and want to do loses its meaning in the drive just to get it done, and there is no fulfillment at the end. In my own life I witness the profound irony of how my lifelong quest for balance with nature and spirit and life into the twenty-first century is currently recorded in a Franklin Quest schedule book! We are now in the midst of living out the resolution of the tangle we have created. The more we pull, the tighter the knot. Was there ever a time when life was truly more peaceful, more harmonious, more loving? Or do we long for a mythological paradise that exists only in the vision of the soul? Certainly many scientists, historians, sociobiologists, and philosophers would say man is by nature violent, and life experience happens in a random, meaningless existential theater of the absurd, while some archaeologists, art historians and theologians attempt to document a time almost before time, (before written history) when there was a peaceful society living in partnership with nature and each other.

One can explore all the academic arguments for or against the existence of such a time of innocence with all of its personally biased retrospective visions one way or the other about what may have been and how and why we fell from Grace. But what difference does it really make whether or not such a harmonious and peaceful time or place ever existed before? We know that we have reached a time now that requires us to envision such a thing, to imagine it into existence, to learn how to become it inside ourselves and bring to through us into the world. This century’s challenge has been said to be more about inner space than outer space.

That’s good news. If we can control anything, it is ourselves; at least in the choices we make, where we focus, and what we value. Sometimes this may translate into scheduling a date with yourself in your planner. To help us navigate through the sea of distractions to the calm of essence or awareness, I offer these guides from an interview with Mitchell May, a healer (whose own healing from a nearly fatal car accident made medical history) and producer of a super green food, Pure Synergy, to be featured in an upcoming issue of Yoga Journal.       

Practice is the Key

Practical ways in everyday experience to be related to the mystery of the universe.

1) When you wake up, let your consciousness come back in with an invitation. Open yourself to relate to the mysteries of life and invite what you want for the day. And remember to show up for that experience yourself, because it will be there.

2) Telling the Truth to yourself and to others. When you tell the truth, you regain energy. If you are not telling the truth about something in your life, you have a major leak in your bucket. The way to heal the leak is to tell the truth. You may have to first look at what’s in the way of truth.

3) Breathing; the interface of the conscious to the unconscious. You can breathe unconsciously or you can be conscious of your breath which relates to the nervous system, to the brain and the oxygenation of the brain. With shallow breathing only in the chest you simply do not oxygenate as much blood as when you breathe into your belly. There is nothing esoteric about this. More oxygen in your brain means clearer thinking, better choices, and feeling better.

4) Awareness of diet. Not because it is good or you “should”, but because you want this energy to play. If there is not enough energy in the body, organs slow down. The memory goes. The aging process comes in. It’s not about rules and rigid patterns but simply learning what your body needs. How do you feel when you eat certain things? Many people come from a fear based place about this. I’m talking about a diet that supports you in opening up your field of awareness. That may be different for everybody.

5) Working with yourself. Ask yourself, What is it I need to take responsibility for? What is my fear? Where is fear of intimacy showing up? Is there willingness to touch or be touched by certain things and not others? Create real words for yourself to help you embody whatever it is that you want to affirm. To me, affirmations are “canned”; I like to say what is real for me and then embody it, sing it, dance it, be it!

6) Experience things for yourself, and do not just follow someone’s dictum. Be wise about what experiences you are ready for. Don’t be foolish and try to be or do something you’re not up for. Know your limitations.

7) Opening to a larger field. Choose one place in your life where you are unwilling to fully inhabit that place. Begin to move toward it rather than away. Breathe deeply as you let yourself contact whatever that place is and see what you feel. We are so caught up in our everyday patterns, we can lose access to this larger mystery.

8) Before you go to sleep. If you have any unclear energies, sit with these. Check in and see if there are places of fear. Just be with your self and be with what is. If there is a sound or breath, let it come. Make contact with Self and any aspect you choose to feel in your body and in your consciousness. Acknowledge any resistance and trace what you are feeling back into the body. Go further. Breathe into it to go deeper. Ask what is needed here to make it whole, to bring it into life? What actions? Let your body relate with the feelings you are having, by noticing how it feels when you resist and when you say “yes” to that space.

The “opening” is to feel exactly as you are. There is no right, no wrong. There is openness and resistance: we know them both. We all have everything we will ever need within us—everything. 

How often our busyness originates from the feeling that we lack something, need something or want to get somewhere. Life will be good when... The funny part is how often what we are working so hard to achieve we actually already have, or pretty close.

Yesterday is behind us, tomorrow is ahead. Today is a gift—that’s why they call it the present!

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