If you are bouncing off the walls today, grasping to get it all done. Relax. You have the superpower of spaciousness within. Verily (and truly) I say unto you...think atomic. Atoms are busy: looping, circling, pushing back and generally keeping up appearances...pretty much like us at the holidays. These building blocks of the Universe move around so fast that they make the world seem solid–literally. The black and white facts are quite different. Solstice today offers an (... enlightening) reflection which might prove pretty useful on the longest night of the year. "Some days, you might feel like a pretty substantial person. Maybe you have a lot of friends, or an important job, or a really big car. But it might humble you to know that all of those things – your friends, your office, your really big car, you yourself, and even everything in this incredible, vast Universe–are almost entirely, 99.9999999 percent empty space." - Science Alert So too, all those presents you just bought on your credit card: they are space. Hark, peace is at hand! We are not even talking on the (very) weird, quantum mechanic's level, this is just atomic. Did you know that when you hug someone, or take a child's hand and feel their touch...you are not actually touching them? There is a space between us–always. You feel my atomic field pushing back against yours, but we are not actually connecting. But, I digress. The interesting thing here is that, as we are mostly space, we do NOT live in a busy world. Not really. Busy is an illusion. Holiday stress is an illusion. Take a moment here. Breathe in the reality of that. We are spaciousness. Feel more relaxed? People who are stressed from loss, or grief or an unwelcome change, feel in control when they are busy. It's a common human strategy to avoid feeling what needs to be felt. Staying busy to avoid pain, that is a pipe dream. Grief needs be felt to move through it. It is (paradoxically...) the quickest way (albeit on a slow and a dark road) back to the regenerating light of a life-well-lived. As a chaplain in hospice, I know many names for the Divine: God, Jehovah, Allah, Great Spirit, or (one of my favorite Cherokee names... ) "The Maker of the Trees". If any of my patients or a bereaved are questioning a choice to be made where one option feels constricting, and the other is more spacious with breathing room... (Well, I know which one I'd choose for myself) and if they ask me, I will share (but they have to ask...). Your Reality is Spaciousness...breathe it in Take a moment today to sit in the REALITY of atomic spaciousness . Allow it to penetrate the illusion of busy. It's an act of faith, really. But, it will also make getting that last Christmas or Hanukkah present all the more joyous. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. -Hebrews 11:1
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