A Manifesto
Have you ever woken up early in the morning with thoughts that came from…somewhere? A few days ago, in the early morning light I thought/heard these phrases:
Joy in the ordinary
Open my heart
Connect with Spirit
Live with kindness
Sounded like a manifesto for conscious ageing/conscious living to me! Did this message come from many decades of life experience? Could this be a taste of wisdom?
Joy in the ordinary. It seems so simple. The ordinary flower…is there such a thing? The ordinary shower…is there such a thing? The ordinary email…is there such a thing? Not if I make it an opportunity for joy. Then, those things I might ignore, take for granted, or undervalue can become moments of delight, possibly transcendence. What would my life feel like if each time I stepped into the shower I experienced it as an extra-ordinary moment…warm water pouring over me, cleansing me top to toe, rinsing me clean? What a miracle! Hot running water! What a gift, so rare in the wider world, so ‘ordinary’ in mine.
Open my heart. We are admonished by the leaders of wellness, the facilitators of workshops, the guides of spirituality, and, dare I say it, the influencers of social media, to open our hearts. Somehow, it seems, our collective heart has closed, been armoured, and shut down. I know that at times mine has been impenetrable, needing to be pried open. To live with an open heart, receiving love and giving it in return is a path to enlightenment. May we all tread that path.
Connect with Spirit. What do I mean by Spirit? Is it the white, bearded man in white flowing robes sitting among white fluffy clouds? Is it the sound of flute and drum of the peoples of the First Nations? Is it the filmy, wispy ectoplasm of the spiritualists? Could it be the True Nature of the Buddhists?
Is it the One Being of the Sufis? It may possibly be the simple felt sense of connection…with myself, my community, the planet and something greater. No matter how I define it, I know when that connection happens and when I am secure in it.
Live with kindness. When asked what was his religion, the Dalai Lama replied, “Kindness”. In a recent conversation with my nephew he told that he made a commitment to raise his children to be kind above all else. And they are. When I respond with kindness to those around me we can communicate more clearly. When I remember to be kind first of all, my life attracts kindness. I also must remember to be kind to myself when I have forgotten it and responded from some other part of my complex self. Kindness, in that instance, is self-compassion and recognition of my humanness, my fallibility. Then I am kind.
Could this be a manifesto for living the bonus years, those years we are gifted beyond the developmental stage of our adulthood…the life stage of elderhood.