Why Paying Attention Matters

Were I to leave an inspirational message for the world upon my departure from this magnificent planet, it would be simple:

Pay Attention.

By and large, our modern societies have imposed the tools and parameters of our utter distraction: cement jungles of our largely dysfunctional cities, inane and manipulative messages of coercive media, the goings-on of our governments with their hidden agendas, daily distractions of our runaway technologies and their abstract impressions, overlaid upon the tapestries of our richly woven lives as “spiritual beings, having a human experience.”

Every life is a chalice, which carries the potential to be filled with the all the light of creation, as we learn to embrace our own godliness: co-creators of the Dream and sparks of Divine Spirit. If only we stop, and pay attention to the Earth and to each other -to all living beings- we remember our higher purpose, just as we remember our role in the unfolding of our collective experience… filling our cups with the liquid light of unconditional love.

Many of us seem to be forever racing through unlimited fields of probabilities, yet at the same time feel somehow stuck within a sense of limitation: running here, running there… back and forth… in space and time.

Creatures of our societal designs, we have become so intent upon reaching the often unattainable and illusive “goal” that all-too-often, we seem to lose ourselves, blind to the beauty of the journey itself: forgetting that the wonder of life is to be found in the subtle shades of “becoming” … and not in the black and white borderlands of “arrival.”

Ask yourself: How often do you stop and take notice of the pure miracle of the journey itself: that you are birthed … that you breathe, that you feel … that you love and are loved (on so many levels) and yes, that you are even capable of contemplating how you pass through this lifetime to another?

You are like a seed, which takes root in the soil and then reaches upwards, towards the sun, growing tall and mighty, like a great oak tree… only to drop its seed again, perpetuating its own eternity.

Miracles unfold around us in every moment, but they often elude us, while we distract ourselves by projecting into a non-existent future or to the memory of a time we believe was surely more beautiful and rewarding than now.

Pay attention to the fact that, in the end, you have this: this moment this hour of your making: of joy or suffering of light or darkness of love or fear. Realize that you are the seed (container of all memory), the root, the tree, the branch and the leaf, spinning its graceful dance into winter, as it falls to the frozen ground below.

And consider, when you drink, for the last time, of the wine of Earth’s incredible bounty: Will you recognize all that is yours – and has always been? Will you celebrate the perfection of all that life is? Or will your ponder what might have, could have been?

Life is oh so precious. Gaze into the innocent eyes of a child notice the first day of spring taste the raindrop on your lips watch the sun rise sew a seed. Know the perfection of just “being.” Beauty is all around you, there to be celebrated, as is the miracle, forever unfolding….

…Pay attention.