slow prayer

Sometimes, in my head, I write the story of this time in my life from a few years in the future.

From my cozy vantage point in the future, I'll look back with compassion at the over-scheduled, under-rested pace of my life. I'll remember with some melancholy the way that my exhaustion was so clearly mirrored in my health challenges -- the clumps of hair in my comb, the broken-out skin, the discomfort of excess flesh, the quickened-by-pharmaceuticals rhythm of my heart. I'll recall how I trudged forward, pushing myself to achieve and produce, and how my relationships -- to my friends, to the earth, to God, to myself -- grew thin and brittle. I'll marvel at the misguided ways in which I attempted to nourish myself.

Mostly, I know that I'll be smiling, because I'll be able to see from that place how powerfully the Universe was holding out its astounding and infinite bounty for me, just waiting for me to receive it. I'll smile, because I'll remember the way that the din of my life drowned out Spirit's voice as it implored me: "no matter what you do or what happens to you, you are my beloved!"

From here, though, in this moment, it's hard to imagine the shift. From here, I grieve for my health, for the feeling of endlessness that is so inherent in these challenges. And it is with much trepidation that I consider releasing these burdens of time and pace, for though they cause me to suffer, they are also my safety. I am safe inside the world of overwork, even though I am also withering there.

And yet, improbably, this is also a time of utter transformation, of quantum leap, of breakthrough. Simple, visceral realizations effect tectonic shifts within the landscape of my life.

And the messages from the other side are so powerful, so clear. This morning at Ecstatic Dance I sat in front of Rivka's beautiful altar, kneeled and bowed before the graceful deep-hued creation of water and light that she'd assembled. At the base of the altar was a set of Osho's Zen Tarot. I sat for a long time holding the deck, asking for guidance for the road ahead, and feeling deep in my body that from this moment forward, I was opening to the shift. The words formed clear and resonant in my mind: "I'm ready to go with the flow." I felt the heat pouring from my hands into the deck, knowing that whatever card I pulled would contain such perfect guidance

And then I pulled this card.



Laughing out loud, I read the meaning of this card in the deck's book:

The figure in this card is completely relaxed and at ease in the water, letting it take him where it will. He has mastered the art of being passive and receptive without being dull or sleepy. He is just available to the currents of life, with never a thought of saying "I don't like that," or "I prefer to go the other way." Every moment in life we have a choice whether to enter life's waters and float, or to try to swim upstream. When this card appears in a reading it is an indication that you are able to float now, trusting that life will support you in your relaxation and take you exactly where it wants you to go. Allow this feeling of trust and relaxation to grow more and more; everything is happening exactly as it should.

Everything is happening exactly as it should.

Trust.

Surrender.

I know that trust and surrender form the golden key, which unlocks the door to a future of health, of energy, of vibrance and radiance. Trust and surrender, instead of push, control, stay separate.

I live inside a remarkable, beautiful life. But in many ways it is a life that I have carefully fabricated so that I can be good, and so that I can be loved. And now those seams, so expertly crafted out of my quiet desperation, are beginning to unravel, as a deeper truth strains to free itself. The current becomes irresistible; though the banks of the river have been carved and shaped, the wild water will always find and follow its true course.

Osho says: "What is the movement of water? or of a river? The movement has a few beautiful things about it. One, it always moves towards depth, it always searches for the lowest ground. It is non-ambitious; it never hankers to be the first, it wants to be the last."

The very mention of "non-ambitious" is truly frightening to me. And yet I know that it is this towards which I must now turn. As I am beginning to sense it, non-ambition is not a release of passion or creativity. No, just the opposite -- ambition, as I have known it, is powered at its core by the question and the doubt of self-worth. Performing to make myself good.

I am certain that this kind of ambition blocks the upwelling of my deepest gifts. When I am always running after approval and, ultimately, love, I do not stand at the center of myself, and so I cannot offer the world the realest bounty of my heart. When I am running like this, I cannot construct my life around the central axis of spiritual practice, cannot take time to lovingly prepare and enthusiastically enjoy delicious, nourishing foods, cannot feel enough energy to be in the flow of giving and receiving with the people I love, cannot devote myself to breathing with my experience. And I run so fast that my body becomes injured, debilitated.

For what?

This is my life. Why would I make choices that are anything less than life-affirming, life-supporting, life-giving?

The shift is coming. Life has extended its hand to me, and there is only one simple word I must utter -- "yes" -- before the music begins and I step forward to join the swirling, sweating, exalted dance.