Everything we hold on to will be relinquished. The people we love, the things we have, the beliefs we defend, the identities we treasure, the bodies we inhabit – all will be left behind. Like the great closing sale of life – everything must go! Every loss we fear will come to pass. What does our tenacious grasping accomplish? Nothing. Nothing we love is ours to keep.
So love with abandon. Love it all. Love it fearlessly, fiercely, tenderly. Love it joyfully and sadly in sweet surrender to the inevitable. So that when the time comes, we will know that we have lived fully, brilliantly, completely. We have not lived in bondage to illusion, but in liberation with our eyes wide open, taking in all the beauty that is life, knowing we are that.
There is nothing like coming face to face with your own mortality to bring you to the ultimate choice in life – love or fear. In big ways and small, we choose love or fear every day, with every interaction, every word, every thought, every breath. Last year gifted me with the grace of stark awareness of the impermanence of everything in the manifested realm of form. And at the same time, there was awakened within me the transcendent experience of union with the infinite vastness of eternal oneness. As the Dao De Jing teaches, both come from the same source, differing only in name.
What I realized at the very beginning of my journey through the valley of the shadow was that I had a choice. We all always have a choice. I chose love. I chose acceptance. I chose freedom. This doesn’t mean that fear was, or is, never present from time to time. Of course it is. But I learned that fear need not be avoided or judged. Fear can be comforted with love. There is absolutely nothing that love cannot embrace.
So watch for those opportunities to choose. You need not look far or wait long. The power is yours to choose. Did you miss a chance to choose love? No problem. Here is another opportunity. And another. Did you get to the end of the day, bemoaning the fact that you chose love only once out of hundreds of moments of choice? Celebrate! That was one moment of being aware of who you are.
O God, help me believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is! ~Macrina Weiderkehr
I’m moving this week, and this so resonates with me — thank you
Everything we hold on to will be relinquished. The people we love, the things we have, the beliefs we defend, the identities we treasure, the bodies we inhabit – all will be left behind. Like the great closing
Good luck with your move, Esther. I hope we can catch up when you get settled.
What a beautifully written post! I am in the process of learning that love is the best antidote for fear. In all honesty, I struggle with the thought of “everything must go,” but I know that is true. My cancer experience is teaching me to face these realities. I always appreciate the way you express yourself, Galen.
Thank you, Pam. And thank you for your honesty about the difficulty of making peace with “everything must go,” which is true for all of us, I think. We are all so human, aren’t we? That is just one more thing to love.
I hope you have all the support you need during your “cancer experience” (love the way you phrased that). If there is anything I can do, don’t hesitate. Just email me at galenpearl@gmail.com. Anytime.
Thank you, Galen!
I am letting go of a lot right now and this was very comforting💗. Loved the “everything must go!” BIG hugs from Texas! 😘
Big hugs back atcha, Becky! I know y’all are in the liminal space of transition. Unnerving and exciting at the same time. Confident that you will navigate this very successfully together.
I love the phrase, “the closing sale of life”. Letting go of all those things that seems so important to us today when we are near to the end is very important and a beautiful experience actually I think. My health is perfect and I’m still living in Arizona half of the year. I will have my 83rd birthday in November. Earl passed away in 2021. I think of you often. Take such good care and of course live life with love.
Thanks Barbara. So nice to hear from you. Yes, I did know about Earl. He was a lovely man and so fun to be around. I appreciate your comment.