Happy Monday.
And Happy July!
I hope this letter finds you today enjoying an extended holiday weekend. Tomorrow’s Independence Day. There are so many levels to this holiday for me. As I mentioned last week, it’s always felt like the beginning of the end of summer (which is nonsense – it’s only just begun – but it is still my job to not squander it – ahh, the pressure!) It’s also my half birthday!
I put value on this because I like to think that my very first summer was when I really began to see the world. At this age, for me, I went from the cozy confines of my mother’s arms in our warm house through the winter, eyes brightening and becoming more aware as the days continued to lengthen, and finally bursting out into the exciting season of summer. A second birth almost. As I was carried about on adventures and passed around to eager relatives attending backyard bbqs, or learning to crawl through a clover-filled lawn, I began to emerge further into my being. You may think this a curious way to view a half birthday. But it feels almost innate in me. A deeper connection to a season that’s always felt special.
And, I suppose, I continue to see myself in this generative state. Birthing in a sense, again and again. Finding new joys, new paths, new ways to see the world. And more opportunities to clear the lens I see it through. Carving out a path inward just as much as I journey outward. It’s a tumultuous adventure at times, on either side. But the rewards are great – like when you finally make it to the peak you’ve been climbing and for a moment stop to gaze out upon a valley or canyon, something you’ve never seen before but for some reason always imagined existed. The reasons that called you to climb in the first place. This is that thing I call living.
And maybe that’s my true cause for celebration. The discovery of my own independence to see and experience this blip in time from my own perspective – a place within that is all my own. Separate, in many ways, from anything anyone else is seeing, yet somehow also deeply the same. Connected through something bigger. Something greater than how it appears. But that we knew existed all along.
I hope you find your own opportunities to explore and celebrate these spaces. Within or without. Give yourself permission to adventure. To deliver onto yourself a new way of knowing. Or perhaps just stop to rest a while.
This week’s meditation focuses on the first 5 minutes of your day. Spending them envisioning how you’d like to feel as you move about this experience, and setting it as your intention, in hopes that it may be a hand to hold when the path becomes unclear. I encourage you to give yourself a little time each day to feel life unfold, to experience the breath as a birth into the next moment. A moment that is all your own.
Have a happy and safe 4th of July. I look forward to sharing with you next time.
Bye for now.