Taking a Vacation From Life

I have recently been taking a vacation. Not the usual kind, where you pack a bag and go from one physical location to another. No I have been on a vacation from human life.

Does this mean I have come back from the dead? Not at all. It simply means I had to take a break for a moment or two, and stop all the hectic nonsense that is our day to day lives, and just breath and be one with the universal existence that lies beyond the human existence.

During this time I have processed a lot of information, and I return to you in a slightly altered state of being. I find that as I am reassimilating into my normal physical existence, there are a lot of things that just don't have the same value they used to. In fact, my value system seems to have become completely changed.

As we listen to various teachers on spirituality, they all teach different ways of being in touch with your spirit. However, since returning from my recent departure, I find that the beliefs of the original peoples that focused on quiet, dark spaces in which one becomes secluded in order to be in touch with the divine, seem to be the closest to accurate that I have found. As I have traveled many paths on this spiritual journey, I certainly have tried a lot of methods for unlearning the human experience and remembering the spiritual experience, and the closest I ever came to really being in touch with the divine part of myself was when I experienced sweat lodges. I never had the courage to be buried alive, or locked into a cave, but I could handle a sweat lodge. So when I went on this little vacation, I was not able to utilize any of these methods, and so I did the next best thing. I stopped doing anything that did not bring me joy. And in this process, I have learned a lot more about joy.

I realize that we are very busy "living" life. Most of us have obligations that keep us 'on track' day in and day out, whether those obligations are in the form of jobs, families or other committments, they keep us going. Some of us have decided to leave this squirrel cage that we run around in, and just check out permanently. We see these people daily upon the streets of our towns and cities. Have you ever noticed that these folks are the ones that always have a smile on their face?

Most of us have no idea how to escape the race that we are running every day. We just keep running, and running, looking for the flag that says the race is over. And most of us don't think the race is over until we leave this physical existence. And so we just give in and give up. I say to you that you don't have to live this way.

May I suggest, just for a moment, that you stop whatever you are doing, and just breathe. You don't have to stop for a long period of time, even a minute will make a difference. Just stop, right now, and breathe. Now pay attention to that first breath. Was it smooth and easy? Was it deep and engaging? Was it ragged and weary? Now pay attention to that second breath. Was it different than the first?
You see, in the race of life, one of the things we forget to do is breathe. We take little short breaths, sometimes we pant, sometimes we gasp for air, but we don't really breathe.

Breathing, while a natural act that our body does without prompting, is a physical act that we have some control over. And because of this control, we often stop ourselves from breathing the way our body knows it needs to breathe; long deep breaths, full of life sustaining oxygen, deep into our being, refreshing every cell within our body. Instead we learn to 'get by' with little short breaths, that barely keep us going.

So for today, I want to suggest that you focus just a little more on breathing. Pay attention to each breath. Yes, I am serious, each breath. Make sure that you are not wasting any energy in taking a breath that is not doing your body any good. Make every breath you take count! And tomorrow do the same thing. And soon you will find that there are changes occurring within your mind and body, changes for the better.

With every breath I take I send out love, peace and joy. Please do the same. SisterSea