Wonder

I often watch my children, interacting with their toys or one another, and am fascinated by the awareness they maintain.  Some call it innocence, others ignorance, others childhood magic.  

Whatever it is, they look at their toys and at one another without a pre-defined certainty of how it or s/he will act.  There is mystery about the interaction, a "what if".  And they are fully comfortable in this existence.  

We, on the other hand, go about our days with unquestionned assumptions - a certainty that things "are the way they are".  We assume someone will act a certain way (based off past actions or just a quick judgment), we assume our day will go a certain way (because of what is written on our calendar or the mood we are in), we assume our things will behave a certain way (the car will run, the house will stand, the office will function).  

We assume our world is going to hell-in-a-handbasket or that peace is possible, that the person running this country is brilliant or a moron, that we are creative or not, flexible or not, that we can or can't, are or are not. 

And yet, the kids are much closer to the "truth".  There is no certainty in life.  As adults we are called to bring this realization, this awareness, into the darkness as well as the light-hearted nature of living.  Kids are asked to consider what their pony might do if she runs into rainbow road...we are asked to consider what we might do if our parent dies or we can't pay the bills at the end of the month.

It may seem harsher.  Indeed, with greater awareness comes greater responsibility.  But this greater awareness, this responsibility?  It is a gift.  It is our opportunity to grow into a rich life.  It is is opportunity To live.

We become afraid as we start to see the darkness, as we are taught that there is a right and a wrong way to succeed, to live, to be.  As we understand impermanence.  We fear being teased or broke or reliant upon others.  We fear being seen for the vulnerable, childlike beings that we truly are.

I propose we re-embrace the "what if".  I propose we return to the magic of living.  

I propose that we stop shying away from expanding our awareness - being afraid of who we really are, what life beyond the "business-success-model" and a comfortable home and the being afraid of the unexpected.  

Nothing is permanent.  Change is not "bad" - it just is.  What if we embrace a constant change - if we flow with it instead of trying to swim upstream?

I Wonder.

Namaste.