Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Christmas present

I meditate daily. Sometimes I meditate more than once in a day. Some days are like that. This is one of those days. It's Christmas Day. I have so much and I am so thankful. Yet I feel a sadness, a nostalgia that I can't understand. I don't know where it is coming from.

My sister, her husband and their twin boys came over. Such joy filled the house. It was now brimming with laughter, leaps and affection. Yet I still felt this sentimentality I couldn't master.

We opened gifts. My sister went all out. She gave me this beautiful notebook. It's an enlightenment journal, she said. It says so on the back. She knows me well.

I got it.

Enlightenment is not something I decide on and get. There is a path to it and this is why enlightenment journals exist. This melancholy I am carrying today is part of the pebbles in my path. I'd like to think of it as one of those soft, rounded stones that fit in the heart of our hands and we hold as if trying to learn a secret from it. My pebble has not revealed any secrets to me today. But I am aware, an effect of my sister's gift, that I am on my way and that I don't have all the answers. My journals help me meditate and reflect. They serve as travel journals. The lessons, awareness and wisdom come as I travel, as I write, as I meditate. Sometimes I understand right away, yet many times I do further along the path.

In the middle of the flying gift-wrapping paper and the joyous squealing of surprised children, I remembered to hold on to nothing, to breathe the moment, to smile, to feel the holiness of the day in the love around me, to enjoy the present moment, to receive all the gifts that make my life abundant, to give the best of me which I can only do in the moment. Today is a good day to be a present to others by being present, by offering our full attention and participating in the moment. Everything else can be dealt with later. Whatever feelings lurk that interfere with enjoying the moment, acknowledge them and let them go. Be present.

©2013 The Soulcerer's Apprentice


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