Wide Awake Living Newsletter

Actuality

Aside from ideas
About what suns are,
What turns…
How it all works,
An actual sunrise
Touches the treetops
In golden light.

This is a miracle of refraction
Performed without
Knowing the word
Yet pouring like a clear stream
From the heart of itself
Golden and radiant.

Noticing this,
Seeing what this is,
This sunrise touches--
Brings attention to--
The actuality here,
So often hidden, but always
The seed in the core
Of this human life,
Housed in flesh, yet
Not confined thus,
Remaining radiant and
Golden as sunrise.

Behind all ideas of who
Watches the sun coming
And sprinkles words on paper
Calling them poetry,
The actuality of the morning
Infuses what it touches
With something quite else,
Something wonderous.
This fleshy bundle…
A miracle in itself,
But what it houses!
What it houses!

This actuality finds itself
In each ordinary life, and
In the fading stars, the rising orb,
The birdsong
Amongst the tangled shrubbery--
In every single thing.

Oh, miracle beyond knowing
I am returned again to actuality
By your hand.

I arise with the sun.
An opening into a simplicity
Already here, yet
Just becoming visible.

I am a window to actuality.
Take my words, and
Look through me, if you will
At this world’s morning.

© 2008 Alice Gardner

Life as a Laboratory

For Experimenting...

And Discovery

My life is feeling like it has become a laboratory for exploring... What is possible? What works? What doesn't work? What now?

I remember so well the moment when at 19 years old, I took to heart the Christian teaching about "seek first the kingdom of heaven and all else will be added unto you". This life I'm living now seems like it has grown out of the heart of that teenage intention. There was a lot to get out of the way before I could even see the possibility of living in this way and it took decades. Now here it is. Now I have no idea how my life is going to work out. None. And mostly I don't even mind. Its enough that I'm Here.

My life has become a laboratory. An experiment that life is making using this body, this mind, this focussed awareness. What can happen from this? Where can resistance still arise? What is still in the way? What is already complete, in spite of me?

How is it that a person can be so connected with the humble humanity of being this fallible individual person named Alice, and at the same time stay so utterly connected to the One Life that is already finished, already at peace. This Peace is always Here and yet there is also the capacity for movement and individual action to happen. The capacity for it in fact seems enhanced! Anything could happen!

What could Life want with this odd configuration of individuality and unity? Can this individual stay out of the way enough to know what Life wants, and still be there enough to take action when the time comes to move? Nothing is certain. Nothing has even been promised. There is just an open unknowing about everything. Everything!

Whatever way this experiment turns out is all-right. In a funny way there seems to be no other way to live for me than this. It feels quite beyond individual choice and intention now. Whatever comes comes. Whatever I can do will be done. Whatever I can't do will be for someone else or won't happen. Life seems to know what it's doing.

The Playshop pilot went wonderfully on May 17th, and I'm waiting now to see what Life has in store for that. It seems to give people an opportunity to go so much deeper than with just a 1-2 hour talk, which is what I have been doing so far at bookstores and other venues.

I will be traveling up to Oregon for a couple of weeks and leaving soon. Those of you who are doing telephone mentoring are being patient (thank you). This trip is a real vacation! I'm going to just totally enjoy myself and see what happens. And speaking of mentoring, I wanted to let people know that I am now up and functional on Skype (audio only) and am finding it very good for mentoring. Especially those of you who are oversees - Skype is free to load onto your computer, and it gives you free phone calling in the US and internationally to anyone else who uses Skype also. If you are interested, let me know. I'm back probably around the 13th of June.
Blessings,
Alice

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