I put on the old ways like familiar old worn out clothes. I slip into them without even realizing, and everything feels normal, peaceful for a bit.
But, then I realize that these are the things I have left behind for the new, because I don’t want to be comfortable and at peace with estrangement, and prejudice, with the mental blocks of my own deductions, and the walls of the borders of my own understanding, each, so lovingly erected bit by bit, year by year, habit upon habit. Yes, it’s comfortable here but there is little air in this room and the lights of love, caring, openness, and even of my own freedom, burn dim in its absence.
They say death is only an exhale without a following inhale. And so as the slow meditative smoke of the incense drifts upward, I pause and become grateful for each successive new breath – and lean into the space between, into the mystery of the moment, which allows no room for my own limiting assumptions.