Intuition

Dropping Anya at her classroom this morning the light was dim and one of her classmates peered with awe at the sky and said, "ANYA! The clouds look like a blanket!" All the surrounding adults paused, looked up, and stared with wonder. It was beautiful. And I wonder if we would have looked on our own.

One of the things I've ruminated upon since getting back from my retreat is when I stopped looking at the stars and clouds. When did I stop pausing with the natural ebb and flow of nature's cycles? When did I stop lying sprawled on my back in the grass, tracing planes with my eyes and dreaming of the worlds beyond those my eyes could conceive? There is a point where we are programmed to turn off our animal self and ignore the intuition and signals sent from our body, a body which was born in nature and will ultimately return.

So often we know a thing before our mind does, our body ignites with an understanding that is inexplicable. As we grow, we are taught to ignore that voice, one which is so organic and preternatural; it is the knowing we were gifted on our first day here. It is an adoring friend when we are young, but slowly we turn from it, forgetting that its interest is solely in the intricate unfolding of the self. It is perhaps the same instinct that had us running from the bear before it crashed out of the forest--but in our artificial world--we can ignore that intuition without physical peril.

But there are many kinds of danger infinitely more frightening than the physical. There is living a half life because you are paralyzed by fear. There is living inauthentically because you no longer trust the voice screaming that staying will mean the death of your vibrance, passion, and creative self. There is staring endlessly into a device at the cost of making eye contact with a stranger or the joy of exchanging laughter in the grocery store parking lot. There is losing the ability to play, ponder, and adventure. There is a slowly encroaching darkness of the soul, a tendency toward cynicism, fear, mistrust, and an implosion of the heart.

We are not born to wither. We are not born to find the passing clouds dull or to rush our children in haste with terse words to the next adult-programmed activity. We are not born to occupy the dark spaces of the world, our hearts like marbles in our chest, the next cocktail the only bit of a light in an increasing midnight. We are born to sing. To write poetry. To make love. To cherish the sunset and the smile of a small child grabbing her mother's hand. And on a day when the Earth is wrapped in the embrace of a cloud that looks entirely like a blanket, it is a thing meant to give us pause, so that we can marvel at the wild luck of being here at all (and especially together).