Question Everything! |
The Alive Ones
By Caitlin Johnstone
The opposite of life is not death.
The opposite of life is habit.
One who moves from cradle to grave
in the flip book illusion we call time
without deeply attending to this cavalcade of
miracles
is one who never lived.
Lifeless are they who live by habit,
who walk by habit,
who sit by habit,
who see by habit,
who think by habit,
who feel by habit.
Lifeless are they who drift through on dead
patterns
instead of giving the omnipresent Holiness its
due reverence.
The alive ones meet each moment
like a dog greets its master at the door after
work.
They do not think: they wonder.
They do not watch: they marvel.
They do not walk: they adventure.
They do not sit: they engage.
They do not wait: they worship.
Awe was never meant to be exceptional.
Awe is the only sane response to this mess.
The alive ones know this.
The alive ones live this.
The mundane does not exist for them.
The ordinary is a fairy tale told by the
lifeless
to which the alive listen with rapt fasciation.
They take in breath with the passion of a
lover in bed.
They entertain light in their retinas like a
beloved guest.
They merrily lose every war with the world.
They dance without music in the frozen food
aisle.
They go out into the rain with bare feet and
empty wine glasses.
They greet every experience with exuberant
curiosity,
and as death approaches it receives that same
greeting.
And when they are gone those they leave
behind
will be saddened but fulfilled,
and so very grateful,
to have known one who truly showed up here.
Caitlin's articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast, throwing some money into her hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying her book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. https://caitlinjohnstone.com
November 02, 2020