The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

The live bough bends. The dead twig snaps.

the original sense of genius means attendant spirit—being in the care of something unseen but near. It is really another definition of wholeness or God,

no amount of preparation can keep me from my experience.

“The day is to be experienced, not understood!”

We are so unused to emotion that we mistake any depth of feeling for sadness, any sense of the unknown for fear, and any sense of peace for boredom.

I became very good at this, could spin in a crowd of loved ones, accommodating many needs at once. I came to believe that I was being selfless, an agile listener, reliable and giving. I thought I had found a way to be both who I am and considerate.

Now I understand that all these incarnations come alive in us when we dare to live the days before us, when we dare to listen to the wind singing in our veins. We carry the love and wisdom like seeds and the days sprout us.

We must be watchful, for we suffer both the impulse to separate and own and the impulse to unify and belong. As our eyes shut and open repeatedly, we as builders take things apart and put them together repeatedly. Yet as wakefulness depends on keeping the eyes open, healing often depends on keeping things joined. In love, in friendship, in seeking

Yet beneath all the talk of tragedy and grace, I have come to believe that we are destined to be opened by the living of our days, and whether we like it or not, whether we choose to participate or not, we will, in time, every one of us, wear the deeper part of who we are as a new skin.