Listen to a reading of "Awakening":
Awakening from the lies of the news man,
the lies of the politician,
the lies of the teacher, the preacher, the pundit, the parent.
Awakening from the authorized worldviews,
the authorized narratives,
the authorized information,
the authorized ideas.
Awakening from dead thoughts written by dead men
on sheets made from dead trees.
Awakening from culture,
awakening from civilization,
from how-it-is stories,
from how-to-be stories,
from should and shouldn't stories,
from us and them stories.
Awakening from conditioning,
awakening from trauma,
awakening from subconscious dysfunction,
awakening from the heritage of pain and confusion
handed down through history from generation to generation.
Awakening from manipulation,
awakening from control,
awakening from grasping,
from pushing,
from pulling,
from hiding,
from holding life at bay,
from the inability to let life be as it is,
from the inability to let beingness play unmolested.
Awakening from identification with the body,
from identification with the mind,
from identification with any localized perspective,
from identification with the disembodied witness,
from identification with the field of consciousness,
from identification altogether.
Awakening from the illusion of separation,
from the illusion of the self,
from the illusion of the other,
from the illusion of time,
from the illusion of space,
from the illusions of the mind.
Awakening to truth,
whatever it may be.
Awakening to reality,
whatever its implications might entail.
Awakening to what is,
without caveat or precondition.
Awakening to peace.
Awakening to love.
Awakening to unconditionality.
Awakening to boundlessness.
Awakening to freedom.
Awakening for everyone.
Awakening for the whole world.
Awakening for humanity,
now and into the distant future.
Awakening together.
Awakening as one.
Opening each pair of eyelids,
one by one,
as we walk arm in arm
into the great unknown.
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Beautiful, Caitlin!!! Thank you for lifting our spirits and inspiring us to join forces and resist the tyranny.
"My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever."
~Mary Oliver, from Thirst