It’s rare that I contemplate the meaning of consciousness. The very act feels like an oxymoron, or rather, an exhausting gymnastics of the mind that I usually don’t have the energy for.
But today, I awoke before 5AM giving me time to have the morning I always desire - one that begins slowly in the dark, where the lamps let off a romantic, warm glow and the dog has yet to go batshit crazy. The boyfriend sleeps, and I get to be peacefully alone.
After making a cup of loose leaf tea gifted to me from an Okoboji apothecary, I had enough energy to take out my computer and do some Morning Pages (I’ve finally given myself permission to type rather write by hand - sorry Julia Cameron - an act that feels almost sacrilegious).
Today’s writing began with an appreciation for a warm house and cold air. Soft light and bright stars. I went outside with the dog instead of just opening the door, taking deep breaths as I stood in my socks on the remnants of the year’s first hard frost.
I pretended to know which constellations I saw - was that Orion’s belt? - as I stared at the indigo sky. The coldness filled my lungs. How could something feel so “alive,” yet so still at the same time, I considered. Why was it so clear?
As I stared deeper, I wondered if the clarity and crispness of the sky, of the air, were made possible at this moment because the hustle and bustle of human life had slowed during sleeping hours. The cars were in their garages, the computers powered down, the buses and the trains and the planes and the fumes and the waste, had yet to begin for the day. Was I breathing the remnants of an unpolluted sky - the last bits of mother nature’s nightly regeneration?
The dog nudged me back inside ready to curl up on the couch and sleep for another 2-3 hours, as he usually does at this time. I followed, made my tea and curled up with a space heater and a cat to record my gratitude for…air.
And as I did, I realized how interesting it is that human beings have the ability to make observations. Like what I had just done - considered that the quality of the air was a direct correlation to the reduction of human commotion as we sleep (no one said observations have to be ingenious).
I then considered how every great thought and every great invention had to come from an observation. From pausing long enough to consider something critically.
Perhaps that can be what “slow down” can mean. Sometimes, I don’t like the idea of slowing down because it feels idle. It feels uncomfortable - to waste a moment of potential.
But what if “slowing down” was not an idle, passive task at all? What if it were active? Slow down to observe. Slow down to pause. Slow down to make a choice to choose nonreactivity. Slow down to remember to breathe. There is always an action with slowing down, albeit a more conscious one.
So maybe the lesson in this morning’s stars was for me to remember this when I’m in the heat of an argument or in the midst of a difficult situation. Maybe all of my fire does not have to extinguish, but can redirect to slow down and observe. Take in what’s true. Feel what’s coursing in my body. Look at all of the world and all of the life around me and remember that this moment is but a drop in the collective experience everyone, everywhere is having; it’s not that important, even when it is.
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I wish I could stay in this place of awareness all day. I wish that when I went to bed last night thinking about how hard it is for me to live that which I know, suddenly that intention was enough and now this morning as I am awake, I get to live the integration of it.
Who said “being aware” had to be so difficult and laborious anyway? Could I not just wake up and choose differently? Wake up and remember that even with all of that programming atop my consciousness, my consciousness is still pure? It is fully awake already? That it’s still in that state of forever potentiality, forever creating, and it doesn’t change?
My awareness of my consciousness absolutely changes, but the effort in “becoming” what I already am? Listless. Futile. I am conscious. I am awake. I am human, therefore I am these things. It’s how I was created. It’s not an achievement, rather, a return. It’s a letting go of everything that is not. A loosening of the grip that I hold so tightly around all of the things I think make me who I am. All of the past events and future achievements, the present relationships even. Letting go of all of those stories and instead relishing in the simple face that I am. Fully. Now.
Slowing down to do so.