Love Everything You Do

The world is there to be loved 

If you love everything you do

the world lights up.

You have one thousand

excuses

for why you can’t love

everything you do.

I know.

I have used them all

to keep myself miserable.

When your house is built upon

these excuses

the power goes out,

and you spend all your time

cursing the darkness.

The world becomes

empty and meaningless.

Philosophers write books

telling you that this is the real world,

and will give you a prize

for bothering to get out of bed.

Don’t be fooled by the academics of doom

nor by the dewy-eyed mystics

who have never risked the darkness.

Love everything you do.

I mean right now.

Everything is contained

in this moment.

Everything.

All your loves, sorrows, hatreds and joys.

You can only love this moment

by being in it,

embracing whatever the moment holds.

The moment can be held like you would a baby.

Why would you look away,

or escape it with distraction?

Why want to be somewhere else?

Take that question seriously, now.

Your lost life is in there somewhere.

I’ll wait.

Truly, there is no way out of this moment,

or the next

or the next.

There is only the hell of the secret exit

from the boring conversation, 

from letting love drive you deep,

from the weight of sorrow

and the arresting beauty.

There are a thousand escape hatches

in your repertoire of fear.

Naming them is spiritual practice.

There is also the heaven

of facing the truth,

and declaring your outrage

as you push back your chair

from the table

and just leave,

like a sage.

While you’re at it

leave the friendship,

the job,

the marriage,

the party,

the sermon,

the deal,

the family,

the covenant of nice

before it’s too late.

Love it or leave it.

What I am proposing

is more radical than you think.

It will leave your life in shambles.

It is death to your so-called life.

Love everything you do.

Take up arms

against boredom.

Endure nothing and nobody.

No excuses.

Your “no” must be absolute

before you can find your “yes”.

Soon, people will run

when they see you coming

if they have not broken

the polite covenant themselves,

if they have settled for misery.

Your true friends

are those who are left

after the room empties,

who smile when they see

you coming,

and can’t wait to enter

into the intensity of what is,

now,

arising,

the eternity of every moment

where there are no rules,

no roles,

only the knowing of what is right for each you,

where nothing is predictable,

where the universe is born again.

Once you did love everything,

with all your heart

before it was broken,

by failures of love

There is the terrible hopelessness

of knowing that you were forced

to make a promise

to never be yourself.

You wore this agreement around you

like a shroud that let no light in.

Now you know that there was nothing,

nothing, you could have done..

Don’t tell me the darkness isn’t real.

It’s terrible.

This is when you started looking for the exit sign,

when the love you felt for everything

and the heartbreak

became entwined.

You, the great and noble survivor,

learned the art of distraction,

from both the hopelessness

and the threat of love.

You put them under day arrest.

But they come for you

in your nightmares,

and the way you distrust the ones

you love the most.

One day,

if you are lucky,

you will gaze upon the ruins of your life,

and discover that

it is mostly distraction,

that it has not been your

life you have been living.

And you see

that this is why you

cannot risk being in every moment,

or trust your longing.

You learned well the lesson,

to pretend you didn’t care,

to reduce the intensity

that was you,

to save your life.

You don’t remember your life because

It didn’t matter.

You didn’t matter.

Life was dulled and dimmed.

It is now time for Grief

to come and take your hand.

Courage, my friend.

Let your heart break.

Take grief’s hand.

She is too wise a guide

to feel sorry for you.

She is giving you back your life.

It is time to go to that place

where there was neither love

or light.

It’s time to face the hopelessness

and feel again

that there is no escape.

Nobody can assure you

that it is not true.

You can only discover it

for yourself.

The moaning you hear

is not that of a stranger.

You are making these

terrible sounds,

cries of freedom, resurrection, and rage.

This forbidden howling

that you’ve hidden

beneath shallow breathing,

abstract ideals,

and a swollen intellect.

This is the intensity

of the present moment

what you want

and fear most,

the reason for your love affair

with distraction.

This is the cross, 

the crux of the matter,

the excruciating breaking of the heart.

The next voice you hear

will be your own

speaking to the little one within,

telling him that he can come to you

in his sadness,

with his hopelessness,

with all the love he has for the world

and wasn’t able to give.

He can make memories again.

It is you now,

the Great Mother,

offering full breasts

as you

weep for the little one

you hold with such love.

The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it.

Love everything you do.

Live Your Own Life Course

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