SWIMMING TOWARD LIGHT

I awoke this morning envisioning myself swimming straight up from darkness toward a shimmering light on the surface of the water above me. I felt weightless and a strong, joyous sense of awareness that I would reach the light, even though I could not make out anything above the light.

I am reminded of the passage in I Corinthians 13, "For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known."

Today, I am still recovering from having my heart shocked into normal rhythm last Tuesday. In considering this event symbolically, I have been desiring for quite some time to interact with others with a softer heart--dropping judgement and expectations that have been keeping me out of rhythm with my inner guidance. Through the chaos of a wildly beating, inefficient heartbeat has come a quiet, regular rhythm offering me a new start with a softer heart.

A poet whose poems have only deepened in meaning over the decades--Rainer Maria Rilke--once again offers new wisdom:

THE SOLITARY PERSON

Among so many people cozy in their homes,
I am like a man who explores far-off oceans.
Days with full stomachs stand on their tables;
I see a distant land full of images.

I sense another world close to me,
Perhaps no more lived in than the moon;
They, however, never let a feeling alone,
And all the words they use are so worn.

The living things I brought back with me
Hardly peep out, compared with all they own.
In their native land they were wild;
Here they hold their breath from shame.

Please write and tell me what you are discovering in your "far-off ocean."