Walking to the Edge

All day yesterday the phrase ‘walk to the edge and the edge will come to meet you, and then you just step’ was there. Insides willing, feeling into the being and doing of it, committing to it. As I walked around the park, sit around the house, while doing the shopping, cooking, tidying.

It was a remarkably thought free day. I noticed the odd little flurry of fixation on one subject or another though nothing stuck to my attention for long. I dropped it gently and promptly as soon as I noticed. An experience of non grabby empty peacefulness. I’m very grateful. Grateful for the nothingness of it, how funny is that. It’s the relief not to have the torment of getting caught up in tedious loops of internal fabricated drama probably. I experience that I’m not actually in the danger I imagined I would be at this edge.

I don’t want to defend or protect anything any more and the cliff edge beckons. I’m more afraid now of living in the endless drama loops. And I am attracted by the sheer mystery of it, and the promise of another way of living and being that I can’t even imagine. The terror seems to have subsided for now. I’ll spend the day committing and pledging and see what happens next.

I noticed more in nature today. Without the preoccupation of ‘me myself I’ focused thinking, and with far less fear…..things jumped out to meet me as a fellow equal, and then into me, through me. The perfection. A tree, an enormous oak leaf, the bark texture, the moody clouds passing….all as much me as me is.

Decisions happening with a spontaneity that comes when fear isn’t present. Knowing what and when to do. A song in the woods, a play with the dog. More love available. Though love doesn’t really fit the sense of it. It’s a visceral sense of inclusion of it all into me. Or is it an expansion of a sense of me into everything. Me doesn’t really come into it, it’s more just an experiencing. The leaf blower outside and noises upstairs….just stuff happening, an experience. I like, I don’t like….

I’m appreciating this time of relief from pain greatly. I’m noticing that all my tools, techniques and healthy habits have faded into the background for now. The diaphragmatic breathing, the closely noticing the thoughts, the applied self compassion. I wonder if they set up the conditions for peace and then they become integrated at some point where they don’t need to be remembered. I so lean on them when I’m feeling pain and very grateful those tools exist. They friends always there for me.

Editing in this addition to today’s post…..

That was yesterday and this morning I felt just a little disoriented. Still calm. Not sure how to be or what to do. Don’t think I need to decide. I notice part of me wants to search for something, this roving ranging mind likes to be occupied and entertained and taught and stimulated. Awake at 5am. And I feel that sameyness still. So got up early and going to see the men with the plan for the next construction.

Then a few minor adverse things happened and I felt the stress reasserting itself. A long drive stuck in slow rainy traffic, a stressed friend called and I had little to say, then got lost in more traffic talking to her, then a weird atmosphere on site, odd conversations about the past and current health issues with the guys, a far too chatty client I stood in the rain listening to for a long time, then more stuck in traffic on the way back. All this knocked me sideways a bit.

And I’m remembering to use it. Keep my heart open, and reopen it when I notice it has snapped shut in self protection. The joyful participation in the sorrows of life. Bit dramatic but yeah. Feel the obstruction and the stresses and use them to further commit.

We have walked up the river the dog and I, and had soup for lunch at the outdoor cafe and the day is still young.