Sacred Space

Most of us have probably wished, more than often, for all the free time in the world to do ‘whatever we please’.  I know I have.  On those days when I didn’t want to go to work, or school, I would think… “man, if I could just do anything I want, like work on my art all the time….everything would just be so much better.”  I’m sure I envisioned these large swatches of time with my being physically able to do all the things desired.  I saw myself as busy and productive and happy…but on my terms.  Nothing dictated or foretold.  Just wide open space and creativity.

I was so naive.

Now that I am mostly at home, because of my back, with limited ability to do many things…all I see and feel is the space around me.  I am like a bug trapped in amber.  The space that surrounds me feels solid and unmovable, and most days I am completely stymied as to what to do with myself.  I work some on my art when and where my back says I can sit or stand, yet it isn’t enough.  I read books, and as much as I love to read…it isn’t enough.  I interact with friends, family, our cats, or my computer as much as I usually do, yet that also isn’t enough.  I seem to have some internal measure of satisfaction that is old and no longer useful.  I have been trained to “do”, not to “be”.  We all are.

What does it take to find solace and fulfillment in the nothingness?  What does it take to find peace in the spaces of time?  I honestly don’t know.  What I do think I am beginning to realize, however, is that there is something sacred that is missing in the experience of being this new me.  I do not use this term lightly.  There has to be a larger sense of Self in the quiet and the non-doing.  Surely I am more than my accomplishments and a healthy back?  I know this in my mind, yet I don’t yet know it in my experience.  What I see and feel now is the absence of my former self, however distracted I was by the things I managed to do.

I know I have been handed an opportunity to know myself in an entirely different way.  This is just a different experience, right?  I did not expect to have the back I do at ‘almost-50’, yet I do.  Most times I don’t feel sorry about it all, I just want to know how to live this way.  I want to rise to the occasion, as corny as that might sound.  I want to resonate in this space…not stagnate and deflate.

Maybe if I turn my head just right, out of the corner of my eye, I will catch a glimpse of a new path.  I will be wise enough to follow it, and be curious enough and open enough to allow the empty space to simply fill me.  Maybe then, I will find my own sacred space…