Awake

Sitting in the Lima airport, three Peruvians are playing the guitar and zamborinas (wind flutes). The sound is beautiful and carries a whistful mountain spirit through the modernity of the new stores. People are waiting. People are coming and people are going to discover.

There is so much to be learned in this space. It’s discovery. It’s what DiscoverHope is.

We can walk paths we’ve always known and walked many times— the foliage and the landscape are familiar. When you come to the end of that path, you confront the enormous cliff in front of you. It has an amazing vista. Your familiarity fades. You breathe in the incoming wind; it blows a thousand stories about people on their own treks. There is something genuinely incredible about every story being so different and so valuable in its own way. The vista below in this place is full of electric green—everything you see has experiences of its own.

You look back from this vista. You know the way back. You can go back if you wish. There is an unspeakable melancholy and a wordless excitement. There is a death opportunity for part of you with a promise of a birth. But it goes against reason and comfort at times.

To discover is to be enthusiastic about the impending birth regardless of the courage it will take. “enthusiasm” has Greek roots meaning “a god within.” How awesome to consult that spirit within and to summon the courage to leap into that new abyss, trusting-knowing-living-awake. Sure, you may be scared, but fear can be replaced by the Light that comes with trusting that you want to live awake.

This is discovery—meeting yourself on a new path with no trail blazed, whatever that is. It may be the job you’ve always wanted, the art you want to create, the decision to be a parent, buying a new home, forgiving someone, creating a passion and enacting an intention.

In this new place you meet yourself again. You are different and changed. This ripple goes infinitely into the Universe. It changes who you once were, who you are, and who you will become in that decision. You begin with new opportunity. This is hope—a chance to create a new vision for yourself.

In all of this there may be discomfort. This wrung in my stomach. There is a brand new path. What is ahead is not seen. I know there is confidence in trusting, to walk with Light and accept the discovery. Here we see how standing for a vision, no matter how small or large it seems, can change the world in ways we may see or not see. Knowing is great enough.

To being awake, MM