Freedom

I had someone say to me the other day," you have a lot of freedom."

That is a big statement. It can involve many dimensions. I should have asked him what he meant by that. Was it related to money or my marriage? My ability, in his perception, that I could do whatever the hell I wanted?  It came after telling him I was going to an ashram to soak up the energy there for a few days. He seemed to think he knew what was going to happen there. I don't even know what's going to happen there- or  anywhere really.

I told him that my freedom was always non-negotiable. Doing what I needed to do as far as being an artist, human, seeker, and liver of life has never been up for debate. I've always taken what I needed and was always willing to suffer the consequences of that.  He really didn't know what to do with that. It always used to happen to me when I was trying to live up to someone else's morality or expectation of who I should be.

People can only see and perceive you from the hole that they find themselves in- the hole they have dug for themselves.  So being free is a very lonely pursuit. We are never seen fully. We are only seen through the prism of the others' imprisonment or freedom proportionally. We have to be ok with that as it's the only thing possible. Struggling to be seen is another form of imprisonment.

What makes this freedom not a selfish pursuit is our willingness to show up and do what's needed in the face of that and the world we are presented with....without being seen. Ironocally, there is no "what about me" in said freedom, as we cannot take credit for our own lives. Our freedom in the face of that is a choice. We have been dumped here to do what is needed for whatever reason--- To walk and experience this cosmic tightrope, strung together, with duty, love, pleasure, culture, pain, growth, sorrow, helplessness, sexuality, discipline, fear, devotion and the responsibility of joy. It's a highwire that is stretched and bound tightly by a cloud of duality that is our physical essence-our mother earth itself. It seems utterly impossible that we can step off the wire and at the exact same time hang on. That we can take for ourselves what we cannot imagine or expect of others or the world at large. Laid here balancing at the feet of the gods we are asked so subtly, somewhere within, to experience ourselves beyond the stretches of that rope and step off into the netless abyss below. Once we accept that call and actually do it, we will never walk the high wire the same again. It is impossible. The entire cosmos shifts. It's proportionate to our willingness to disappoint ourselves and others. It will seem funny to us why people don't actually own and take responsibility for their own freedom- why they don't live their lives to answer the call. The one who is doing the asking will never quite leave us alone until she has satisfied her longing. It is the longing of the cosmos itself-which is us.

Sitting here in the darkness of an October morning the edges of winter are starting to creep in. The first few flakes of snow sparkle and fall in the streetlight outside the window. We won't be here forever. Why don't we claim and embrace the touches of love, vulnerability and humanness required- the pleasures of freedom that are so graciously laid at our feet? It's not like we are going anywhere at all but back to the earth itself. Life is a temporary reprieve from what we don't know. We are it. What are we waiting for? Why do we deny ourselves the pleasures, openness, love, and attention of ourselves undone? Why do we deny ourselves the freedom so graciously given....  I am guilty.....it's the ultimate form of dishonesty really...it's there for the taking....go ahead....touch it.... leap.

Namaste