Put out into the Deep

We often say we want to grow. The question is are we willing to do what it takes. It’s easy to read books or hear talks or read blogs. It’s hard to look within, take stock of ourselves and quietly apply ourselves to genuine change, genuine soul work. It requires movement away from what we’re used to, surface, and descent into what we are not used to: in other words, depth.

When we stay on the surface, stuck with where we’ve been and not letting go and changing – deepening – then misery results. When we are willing to look deeper, then yes– we often do come in contact with our pain. But also it’s then that the gateway to transformation and change opens.

How silly we can be as a species. We know there’s another way, the way of truth to self, to the holy and to depth of experience, yet we resist be-ing with ourselves. We don’t set aside time to be away from endless distractions.

So it goes, with our daily life. Surface or depth? When we’re in pain, we’re willing to consider things we haven’t. We’re willing to open up and see so that we’ll feel better, so the pain will stop. But, the telling really comes in the daily living. To be able to choose depth, to choose to be fully present and take off our blinders– No matter what others say or how they pressure us. This is depth. Surface bids us go for the tepid pat on the back, rather than risk being with our depths. But being with our depths can bring all the difference.

Waking up recently, I remembered a dream. It spoke of forces from my past, professional groups demanding allegiance, old dysfunctional relationships demanding conformity, friends who demanded adherence to “this way or that” of seeing things. In the dream, I saw from a distance what had once been so up close and personal and I suddenly had more clarity, and felt more freedom of choice. A breath from the flow of all things swept through me, and I turned and left the scene, ready to move on with my life and new decisions regarding surface or depth.