Waking up. Growing up.

Written by Chela Davison

Waking up…It’s still dark, but morning is here, you can feel it in your stirring bones.

Dreams are lingering and bleeding into the awareness that consciousness is flooding in.

Your toes point and wiggle and reach away from your heavy hips.

Your eyes flutter open, the taste of the night is in your mouth and you have arrived, in this moment.

awake

Good morning.

You become aware of your body, your bed, your room, the day that’s ahead.

You're aware of all that is, that you were not aware of while you were sleeping.

you’re awake

Insight. A new morning. Insight. New seeing. Insight.

There’s something on the horizon that’s arrived as suddenly as eyes bolting open.

Insight

Growing up…You reach up up up and can touch the doorbell for the first time.

A line drawn over the top of your head shows that you’re taller than your big sister was two years ago.

You don’t fumble with the ball the way you used to.

Your brush strokes are starting to look like that of a 'real artist’s'.

Your curiosity compels you into action and what once looked like a fantasy is coming together.

You’ve got some skill

You rarely lose your temper like you used to.

You can focus so intently now you can barely remember those days of distraction and procrastination.

You can say ‘I love you’ without feeling awkward.

You take baths without a running to-do list in your head.

You’re changing. You’re growing. You’re growing up.

Practice. Muscles are building and strengthening. Practice. Capacity is expanding. Practice.

What was once wobbly, clumsy and frightening is becoming solid, dependable and embodied.

Practice

Insight and Practice

Waking up and Growing up.

Can they become more compelling than the comforts of our addictions, afflictions and compulsions?

Can they be where we turn more habitually than our turning away?

Can our weary heads rest upon the sweet promise of change?

May we look for that which we cannot see and endeavor to go in ways that we cannot move?

And if for only a minute, the creek of these old bones does inspire a song to dance to...

Can we rock out like it doesn’t matter if we stubble about?

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Comment Link Saturday, 29 October 2011 20:12 posted by Richard Munn
28th August, 2008

Today I sit in my small but peaceful room reading and looking out of my open window. Occasionally pigeons fly past and fleetingly speak to me of arriving, existing and leaving no trace. I watch my cat Willow jump onto my bed and purr while he paws the duvet before he falls asleep. I listen to inspiring and informative audio while eating then return to reading. Feeling a call I pause and return to the scene outside the window.

Leaves softly rustling in the wind, sounds coming and going, some pleasant and some not. Emotions coming and going, some pleasant, some not. Thoughts, some useful and some not, some I tense up around, some I don’t. The white plum blossom has already disappeared, fallen and melted like spring snow.

A memory comes to me of when I was a child playing with toys. This toy, that toy, toys breaking, toys becoming boring and what I thought were unattainable toys were attained. They faded away and are now completely forgotten.

I sat one day with my toys looking at the little figure in front of me, the latest one, and I saw that not even the latest one will make me happy.

I then sat and looked at the new pair of trainers that only the day before excited me so much to have that I couldn’t stop running around in them, up and down the stairs, up and down the road, or simply jumping in them to feel the air bubble in the sole. I sat and looked at those trainers and became sad as I started to see through them, knowing my feet would outgrow them.

This little boy in my memory tastes these objects around him as unflavoured cold porridge. He sees his world fading and draining before him. He sits on the carpet with his toys and from an ache a question begins to form.