Spacious

This is the third day of a holiday weekend. I am thinking back to Saturday morning, sitting with a journal in my lap and a cup of coffee, thinking of how I was savoring the sense of openness, spaciousness. Three days seemed an eternity! At the back end of that same holiday weekend, my perspective on time has changed. Suddenly it is a fierce, taskmaster, commanding me to finish an endless list of tasks that I "should do."

What if I just said "no?" There is absolutely nothing on that list that cannot be deferred, for a short time or, in some cases, forever. Yet, I have let this invisible taskmaster rob me of my sense of spaciousness, and the terrible irony of this is that the taskmaster is a figment of my own imagination!

What if I ignored the summons to do more, to finish the list, and turned to another inner voice? This is a voice that is usually overpowered by the stronger volume of the taskmaster, but it is a voice that is ever present. This voice, let's call her Essence for now, would give me very different advice. She recognizes that the task list will never be finished, so reaching for a sense of peace and spaciousness at the end of that rainbow is the worst sort of folly. Essence offers very different advice: stand still. All space, all time, all possibility, lies in this present moment. Spaciousness is always available, and it is never contained in the world of form.

This is not a plea to do less or to defer responsibility. It is a plea to pause more. It is a plea to get off the treadmill of unconscious activity. If I can learn to vacuum the carpets and clean the bathroom and even take out the trash while staying deeply present in the moment, then I will stop waiting for some illusory happiness that is supposed to arrive like a reward after I complete things. I will have my peace and spaciousness in the doing itself. Life itself becomes meditation, or spiritual practice.

It's a sort of doing that is also an undoing, with less control and more release. I am unclenching my fist as I write. I stare at an open palm. Yes, this is what it feels like. I know I am navigating in this realm because I feel a sense of spaciousness. The door is wide open. It was never really closed at all.