Wonderland of our own making

　

There is this great quote that I haven't been able to put my finger on. It goes something like this: 'I realised that I have spent most of my life living just to the right of myself.'

 

Lately I've been thinking a lot about this, because I'm pretty sure this is familiar to pretty much everyone. How rarely do I - even now, when I'm much more aware than I used to be - live rooted deeply in my own body, deeply in the 'Now'. I am frequently leaning ahead of myself, just out of reach, off-centre, straining towards the next moment, the next relief, the next reward, the next task. And when I'm shrinking away from an anticipated unpleasant moment in the future, I'm still leaning away from myself.

 

When I realise this, I breathe deeply, and relax. My awareness changes. I feel myself settle into myself. Time itself seems to shift, to slow. It is deeply satisfying. I feel grounded. Yet a few moments later, my mind is caught in a 'hook', as Pema Chodron would say, and I am following the rabbit down the rabbit hole into a Wonderland of my own making, where nothing is as it seems and everything is unsettling and carried along on its own mad momentum. Until the realisation comes again, and I breathe, and here I Am.

 

Part - but not all - of the problem, is that we are surrounded by a human world which has lost touch with itself and is constantly straining one step, or many steps, ahead of the present moment. We are reminded of this constantly, from the moment we turn on the radio or television, listen to the latest pop song, drive in rush hour traffic, open our emails, answer our phones. When the world around you beats to one drum, it's difficult to follow the beat of another, especially one that is quiet, and faint as a pulse, and only you can hear it.

 

I suppose this is why it is a lifetime's practice, this living in the moment. And instead of frustration every time we realise we have been 'hooked' again, we can celebrate, because it's another moment of awareness, of coming back to the present. We owe it to ourselves and each other to escape the daily insanity of the world we have created and find our deepest selves have never left us, but are still waiting for, patiently, right here. 

 

Excerpt from the poem 'Unwittingly' by John Burnside　

'...you'll come to yourself

in a glimmer of rainfall or frost,

the burnt smell of autumn,

a meeting of parallel lines,　

and know you were someone else

for the longest time,

pretending you knew where you were, like a diffident tourist,

lost on the one main square, and afraid to enquire.'