I sink so deeply into my own Being.
I luxuriate in it.
I bathe in my own Vastness.
I am not ashamed to love myself so completely.
I taste my own taste. I look through my own eyes, am amazed at what I see and cannot see. I inhale through my nostrils the living day, its sweet and surprising scents and new aromas.
I watch in astonishment as feelings move through my body, filling my sweet and vulnerable nervous system. Joy, sorrow, clarity and confusion, they are all beloved to me! Waves of the most profound doubt, and such certainties too! Anger and fear, shame and pride, I watch them all and bless them all and laugh and cry as they move through.
As I walk through the city I rest here in myself, I rest in my own heart, I fall ever more deeply into my own Being. I am profoundly alone and profoundly connected to all of life.
I sense death all around me, sense the rotting and disintegration of things, sense the constant falling-away of form and the passing of dreams. The loss, the disappointments, the shattered hopes and the smashed futures ! I celebrate the darkness and soften into it. I let the night touch me at my very core. I take the night as my lover.
I weep with the brokenhearted ones, I cry to the heavens with those who have been violated, shamed, neglected, battered by the world. I celebrate the successes of men and women, and I am here by their side when they fall. I am alone and I cannot separate myself from humanity. I am nothing and I penetrate all things with love and curiosity. I breathe in the paradox of my existence, I exhale contradiction and dissonance, my entire Being vibrates with infinite mystery, and I am happy in myself. Yes, my own Being is the source of my very deepest happiness. If this is my last day, if this is my final walk through these streets, let me pass with only gratitude on my lips, and only love in my heart, and only child-like wonder saturating my vulnerable self. I give myself to the silence.
Jeff Foster