Morning in Hawaii
Resting here with you,
I listen to this moment.
Breath, rain, ocean – peace.
Lisa McCrohan, © 2016
I stood there on the shore in Kauai, Hawaii, watching the powerful waves crashing onto the shore and then receding back out into the vast ocean. I was truly resting in the moment – alive, present, but with no “racing thoughts.” I was listening — not with my “brain” but with my senses, with my body, and with my heart.
If you’ve ever been to Kauai, Hawaii, you know that She (the island) doesn’t speak to you in words and through the world of “thoughts. No, she is much more ancient than words. She speaks to you through experience. She speaks to you through being embodied in this present moment. She speaks to you through your heart.
My mind wasn’t active in Kauai. No racing thoughts. No anxious thoughts. Not like when I am in the Washington, DC area.
Just experience and heart.
Have you visited or lived in a place that “spoke” to you through experience and heart?
Listening to wisdom of the land speaking to you, sensing the pulse of the earth regulating your own pulse and breathing — I’ve never experienced this so palpably than on Kauai. I rested with Her. I rested with the Divine there. I rested with my family and friends there. I had no desire to “figure out what it all meant” – I just experienced the embodiment of a vast, open heart. I didn’t even write while on Kauai!
Returning home, I can feel Kauai still close to me. She still does not use words to speak to me. But the hurried culture of Washington DC calls me back into my head and amps up my nervous system. Such “activity” in my thoughts could drown out the hushed silence of Kauai still weaving Her way into my being.
Yet, as the new school year is now in full swing and we are getting back into our groove, I feel the invitation to consider this:
What if the “point” of this life isn’t to achieve or DO anything? What if the Beloved’s invitation is not about “perfecting” yourself or being good or reaching some holy destination, but rather the Beloved’s invitation is to EXPERIENCE this life, to feel the Beloved “resting here with you,” and to know a deep sense of delight in everyday life?
What if the Divine’s invitation is really just as the Sufi poets, Rumi and Hafiz, write about: to play? To experience?
No, that doesn’t negate our suffering. It actually INCLUDES our suffering. Experience is going to include suffering. There’s no getting around that in this human life. And would we really want to? In my harshest, most cruel times of suffering, I can see now how a tenderness grew within me that seems to only come through brokenness and opening. I can see how any suffering I have experienced opened me to surrender, stripped away anything that kept me from the Beloved, and opened my heart. Suffering has emptied me and placed me on the lap of the Beloved where I can rest and experience being held and loved – with no expectation to do or be more, but rather to just BE LOVED. And in such tender love, a vastness has been growing in me and a deep sense of delight rising in my everyday life that then can flow through me as “presence” to others.
I have heard the Beloved’s invitation, “Lisa, I don’t desire you to DO anything. Let’s just be alongside each other.”
And so with a huge pressure off my shoulders to “do more and be more,” I can experience the joy and pain of this lifetime. I can listen to this moment with all my senses awake and trust. I can delight in the smallest of things, fully embodied in the moment.
Kauai is surely speaking to me through experience and heart. And I am opening, surrendering, and listening – with my whole body.
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Dear One,
Here is an embodiment practice to support you in listening through experience and heart: “Feeling the Pulse of the Earth” Practice:
– Find a place on the earth that calls to you. (No, we don’t have to travel to Kauai to feel it, though sometimes getting out of our everyday lives can help). We can connect to the earth anywhere we are. Find a place that speaks to you.
– Sit close to the earth or on the earth.
– Close or soften the eyes.
– Feel yourself being supported by the earth.
– Notice the sounds. Feel the breeze on your skin. Smell the scents that are in the air.
– Spread your fingers out wide and place a hand (or both) on the earth.
– Listen to the earth with your hands and your whole body. Sense Her invitation to you – to rest, to be nourished…whatever it may be.
– Sense the pulse of the earth. Sense how your own breathing and pulse begin to soften and slow down.
– You can spend a few moments here or as long as you like.
– Notice as you finish this practice – however brief or long – how it is to be embodied in this very moment.
– Notice your heart center and the sensations there. Can you sense the vastness? Can you sense the vast ocean within your own heart — welcoming in all that arises?
This is truly an experience of embodied presence and it’s accessible anytime, anywhere on this precious Earth.
And from our Ute Native American sisters and brothers, I share this prayer:
Earth, Teach Me
Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.
Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.
Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.
Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.
– An Ute Prayer
*Dear One, if it’s time this fall to “hold space” for you to feel the pulse of the Earth and align your everyday life with what She calls you to experience, please see my offering of Compassion Coaching to clients all over the world. I have four spots open.
Blessings,