Published in Shaumbra Heartbeat, September 2008
Sitting here looking out my office window at all the aspen, pine and spruce trees that are close enough to touch, I remember that without them I could not be here, for they create the oxygen that sustains me. They breathe so that I can breathe. In fact, I am breathing the oxygen created by trees thousands of miles away from me and I am grateful for the life they make possible.
Do you know that you are breathing life for those who follow? You are creating the essence – the New Energy oxygen – for their awakening, simply by going about your life, being who you are, and breathing for yourself. Those trees on the other side of the world don’t know I’m breathing the air they have enriched. They are simply being trees, standing tall, swaying with the wind, experiencing the weather, reaching deep into the earth, and offering their presence.
Just the same, you may not know all the humans that you touch with the energy you bring. You only need to live, breathe, flow with the moment, experience whatever is happening, reach deep inside and simply be. Just as the trees have made it possible for you to breathe, you have helped make it possible for others to awaken.
This beautiful House of Awakening that is nearly complete has been built on the foundation of compassion. And like a house can be built from the wood of trees, this House is built from the consciousness of your breath. Every time you choose to breathe, you are choosing life; you are choosing to love yourself; you are choosing clarity, compassion and wholeness – and these are the substance of every fiber of the House of Awakening.
You have designed this House with every moment of life you chose to live, constructed it with every conscious breath you chose to receive – and it has taken no more effort than it takes a tree to grow. Turning your life into the substance of awakening takes no more effort than for the tree to turn the sun into oxygen. It’s simply the nature of who you are.
Are you ready to be and know who you really are? Can you let go of your limitations and doubts, your fears and hesitation? You will probably still feel these things at times, but can you let go of thinking they are yours and simply breathe with them in compassion?
The doubt that you transform today may form a picture on the wall in the House of Awakening that tomorrow will be seen by someone in another land, reminding them to trust themselves.
The fear that you embrace tonight may knit a blanket of courage that warms another soul as they lie dreaming in our House tomorrow night.
The pain you breathe through tomorrow may write the story that someone reads, sitting in the library of our House next week.
The frustration and confusion that baffle you – until you remember to breathe – is paving the pathway of clarity that winds through the gardens of our House and bring Aha’s of knowing to those who walk here next year.
Do you see…
…how carefully we have crafted every part and every detail in this House of Awakening?
…how the challenges you’ve faced have served to place a treasure in the House for someone else?
…how your darkest moments have only been because you went into one of the newest rooms to light it with your compassion and then furnish it with your wisdom?
…how, by breathing through feelings that are not even yours, you have created the fixtures of trust, compassion, self-love and courage?
…how sometimes you can’t see your grandness for a moment because the welder’s hat has obscured your vision while you’re finishing up a particularly beautiful part of the House?
…how the shambles that might surround you is simply the chaos of a building site where a mansion is emerging?
…how you can choose easy when a challenge appears, dive into the moment as it unfolds, and trust that your breath is all you need?
…how that very choice and that very breath is changing the world before your eyes?
The construction of this House of Awakening required the best architects, the wisest designers, the most compassionate decorators – and YOU are on the team. Will you let yourself remember who you really are? And, when you get a glimpse of your amazing Self and wonder if it’s true, remember: the grander it is, the truer it is.
Dear Shaumbra, this House of Awakening has been built with every conscious breath you take; and it has been nailed and glued and loved together with every beat of your Shaumbra heart.
