I work alone (mostly) and travel frequently. Sometimes after a long trip when I have been working, I bring home with me more longing for connection and love than ever before. Funny, you can feel more alone in a large, populated place like NYC than a small town. Everywhere you look there are opportunities for love and for giving. You are confronted with humanity teeming all around you – all living, acting, breathing out their lives in full view of each other. I personally find it amazing at how connected we are, yet at the same time how estranged we are from each other. All the more reason for us to become AWARE and FOCUSED on that ONE thing, person, cause, purpose, and connection that makes us feel like we are part of something – and connected to our TRUE SELF. That ONE that makes our lives beautiful, that tells our hearts that we matter, that shares our story and confirms that we indeed are NOT alone. I write a post on the connection I felt with the crowd on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade on the 4th of July as hundreds, thousands, gathered to experience the fireworks. We were all connected in purpose, but pretty oblivious to each other. I especially find that daunting.
Snow Patrol does a song “Chasing Cars” and in the lyric he invites his love to join him in a repose –
If I lay here
if I just lay here
would you lie with me
and just forget the world?
Can we see that everyone is looking for someone, yet no one is really seeing each other? I guess its because we are so consumed with our own private lives and getting what we need, doing what we must. Do you dream of having that person that is absorbed into you and you into them? Someone who is fully aware of you as you are of them. Is that possible? I am not sure that I have been able to attain that in my life and in the relationships that I have had, but I long for it. Maybe for some it’s easy. But for many of us, it is difficult to overcome the expectations that have been engrained in us since we were little – perform well and you get rewarded – perform shitty and we are not chosen. It can be a bit challenging to just “lay here and forget the world”. To let go and BE. You feel guilty! You feel like you aren’t being validated, because you are not giving enough. Perhaps you are motivated by fear, that old fear when we were being domesticated that says you won’t have anything if you don’t follow, or the idea that you won’t have enough because you’re not GIVING enough. (And don’t get me wrong, giving is good, I am talking about awareness and a balanced give and take of life.) I told my niece recently that if I could go back when my kids were babies, I would go back and cut out 80% (maybe more) of the activities I was doing. I would slow down and watch them be little, there would be NOTHING more important than to “just lay there with them and forget the world”!
Forget what we’re told
before we get too old
show us a garden
that’s bursting into life!
If you look around you, you will see life brimming! I think sometimes we just need to let go and BE (you KNOW I feel that way!) Like the song says, “forget what you’re told” jump in, taste it because NOW is the time and you will never get this moment back.
Love & Peace
Sandy
Saturday Soul 
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