It’s easy to spot when it happens, but it doesn’t happen very often, or often enough I suppose, in my estimation.
When I was a kid driving Marguerite Parkway with my dad to Saddleback college there were these soft subtle rolling hills undeveloped between the liquor store mini-mall and the Mormon church just before turning left into the college drive. As a kid, looking out the window, I always imagined those rolling hills were sleeping dinosaurs who fell a sleep in the most peaceful way and then the years covered them up with earth and grass and I imagined them one day waking up and lifting their heads and stirring up all that ground. They would rise to their feet alive again because the encrusted earth upon their backs couldn’t possibly keep them there once they awoke.
Most of us believe, and with evidence to prove, we are most definitely awake. The worry, the stress, the money, the Covid, the scarcity, the school, the family, the ever nagging discontent of a discontented world with a flash of peace here and a bowl of ice cream there.
So when the Great Art of Waking Up appears in a sleeping a dinosaur friend, oh how beautiful and oh how precious a sight!
Yesterday, I returned from a 48 hour retreat shared with my friend, Marci in person and online with nine other women from all over the United States. Basically, we were talking about the great art of waking up which allows the school and the family and the work and the money and the worry to be there just like before but shifting the glass ever so slightly so that the light hits it just right and unlocks this deeper level of living.
“What can I put into my life to make it feel more life-like?” How do I build my life in a way that makes me not want to escape from it? That’s a lot of what waking up is about. I would describe it as a reacquaintance with freedom. I would describe it as truly gospel living.
Oh how sweet it is to have women gathering together to rediscover the pure delight in living and laugh and wonder at the possibility all the while never having left the ordinary day to day! Oh how wonderful it is to see a friend speaking and creating and moving in the world shaking off the earth that had held her captive! Oh how wondrous to witness the falling in love with this incredible place and these incredible people!
I spent so many years believing this life were but a trial and a lesson and something we had to submit to. I was asleep and what’s amazing is that I was blessed with moments of magic and wakefulness even as I stubbornly remained frozen in some respects, but now everything’s the same but more importantly, everything is different.
Everything is about the trust in the one gift of this one life. People come to that truth in many ways and their lives change forever. Some people hear the whisper of that truth every now and then, but are convinced that keeping still will keep them safe- like a sleeping brontasaurus buried beneath the brush.
You might say we’re living in a time of collective slumber, of collective immotion and that’s true. It’s also true that waking up requires nothing more than your heart and mind and soul finding rest and freedom, safety and abundance right where you’re at. And the thing is, it’s not selfish or greedy. When we get the chance to observe the awakening, you make our hearts swell and we fall deeper into life thanks to one’s deeper encounter with it.