Caregivers After All

I'm a caregiver, and coming to this, I believed - totally unprepared. For many years I helped my father care for my mother during her decline through Alzheimer's and then after I have helped my father in his later years. Now at 93, his mind is sharp, while his body faces a few complications. I'm happy that overall, he is still fairly healthy. I feel I can take little credit in this, although I do what I'm able and as much as I can - yet much has been luck, good genes, help from family members and medical professionals. After many years, now I've come to see my role as truly what the title says - I give care. I tend, lend aid, comfort, support and love. More so, I see that life has prepared me perfectly for this role - through heartbreak of my own, a certain knack for loneliness, a modeling for empathy and compassion from my parents and other loved ones. I come perfectly formed for this position. We all do. We're all caregivers. Life itself is perfect preparation for exactly where we find ourselves. From early on we're each caregivers in a way we can manage at the time - and this grows through ever stage, until we find it's all we truly have to give away, just a bit of ourselves, in whatever way the moment calls for. Nothing in my life has prepared me to do less than simply love. I have grieved for this, mourned, suffered loss, and not met with certain gain. My heart broke for this. Tears, and yes, laughter too - for joy is essential to this role as well. In fact, it's better said, easier, to say that I have lived entirely, every aspect, and all the years - to be present, tender, to a person now in need. This is my role, and yours as well. Most importantly, it's our time together to care for each other, for the world, in small and large ways. We are caregivers after all - born and lived to reach this role. 

~

Peace,

Eric 

Seers of This Ordinary Magic

it's only when we add to this - our first clear sight, the world as new and fresh in its becoming. There's no story yet told. This is always our original sight, seeing for the first time, every time, and only later are descriptions added. Our capacity is to hold both the beginning, this first sight, as well as every distinction that unfolds - it speaks of our largeness, that we precede stories of the world, yet allow their telling, remaining true to the nature of both. This is a beauty that defies poets and artist, leaving mystics without beliefs, and still calls for them to attempt a momentary capture in words, art, or a finger pointing at the moon. It's can't be done - but in its effort, something of this awe is conveyed to others. This draws us to take a look for ourselves, to renew ourselves within and as the view. We become poets of an unspoken word, artist in a medium that expresses its own wonder, and mystics without a point of view - we're seers of this ordinary magic. 

~

Peace,

Eric 

It's All Nature

it's all nature - and too is our inclusion. Nothing is found apart in this fabric of the whole, and it only seems that distinctions leave off in a separate becoming. We have mistaken ourselves as something other than the world, apart, and more as if we were the only ones who truly belonged. This belief, it seems, has caused an underlying anxiety, our sense of being alone in a universe where all else is connected. Yet, clearly, we are right now amidst creation, serving our own part to the whole - an equal exchange through breath, as if particles in a greater lung to all the world, we cycle through life both giving and receiving. We are nature. It's really that simple, life just continues in various form to formless, one thing in mysterious expression - and at no point, ever, do we find ourselves removed from our own belonging. It's what we are. 

~

Peace,

Eric 

Life Itself is A Letting Go

it's really, only, the recognition of what has already been let go - life continues in a motion of its own accord, and we too are simply ripples in its stream. Surrender takes place in its own natural order, each moment holding only what it holds for the length of stay give. Even our clinging is an eventual past event, now a memory of what we refused to yield, but really just a tender mourning as we moved towards another day. So we see that life itself is a letting go, effortless in release and without time for what it holds. Through this we find ourselves without action, simply part of life in constant surrender of itself - to recognize this, is to be awake, aware, and open to the word for what it brings, and what's let go. 

~

Peace,

Eric 

Original Content of Seeing

perhaps it's just to look - our one true purpose being to simply see the world without description, to be immersed in our very own nature, participants within our observations of it all. To see is really a welcome to what we behold, it's a return of grace to empty source, allowing what's viewed to rest in original note before opinions are formed. In this way, from first sight, we see again a tree as a shared miracle of growth between earth and sky - touching both in equal measure and more too with our inclusion added. This tree is now our story, told as our participation in this moment of joining along with earth and sky, how we all became together, one thing in observation of itself in wildly different forms. Yet all this too is just a story that followed - it's that first, one look, that exists without lie or story, the original content of seeing. 

~

Peace,

Eric 

As Open as The World

in a world made wide open, when we ourselves are literally space in gathered form - why hold to small beliefs? What is it that keeps us tethered to traditions that confine? There is no reason to believe what's been handed down by ages. Of course what's been given may indeed be true, and useful - and maybe not either. But we are free to find out for ourselves, to examine and explore our world for every kind of truth and even for the false that only serves us for a time. Perhaps better still is to remain us we are - open, as wide as the word itself, and equal in the varied possibilities it offers. We were not made to be small, not in belief, not in life. Our practice is only, always to let go - and simply be. And now we find ourselves, again, as open as the world. 

~

Peace,

Eric 

Myself as World

the world is soul - and by this it's meant our own extension, that what's essential is spread before us as well as our inner vision of self. There is no line to keep us apart from the world, our view extends in measure of our largeness, and we are matched only by horizons and further past to distant stars. Nothing is beyond us. This is literal, that science tells us the same particles gathered now as our display were the very same that made a star - we are still made of light, energy, and some grace and mystery that holds is all together. For me, I call it soul, myself as world, and how it plays through the reach of my view. 

~

Peace,

Eric