Author: barryschade@gmail.com

The way the story is told, Snow White was awakened by a kiss from Prince Charming. It is a cute Disney story, and it has drawn a fair amount of snarky commentary about women being rescued by their prince. I think that surface view of the story is appropriately dismissed. But the myth goes much deeper than that modern interpretation.

For me, the myth of Snow White has a new and deeper meaning about awakening. It has become an archetypal tale of the awakening of the feminine in each of us, whether we identify as male of female. The kiss is indeed a magical touch that awakens the feminine in Snow White but it also awakens the feminine in the Prince. Snow White and the Prince are as one.

What has been asleep is now able to be brought into the open. What was touched can now be embraced. The deep compassion evidenced by the Prince awakens and summons the wise, rich and beautiful feminine that dwells in all of us. This awakening magic happens no matter which gender we identify with.

The shallow, one-sided and popular telling of the Snow White and Prince story does not convey the deeper richness embedded in the myth. The wise feminine in us may lie dormant and asleep, but it can be awakened by compassion shown by ourselves, another person, or both. The magical kiss can come from many and surprising directions. It can happen many times and with different kids of intensity.

In this view of the story, the wise feminine also penetrates and awakens the compassionate male. For me, a different kind of awakening than I often have perceived. I am awakening now with a smile of recognition of what has always been, but was not so obvious to me. All these years, my muse companion has truly been feminine. She has walked both beside and within me. She is a lovely face to awaken to.

Sometimes I have lived my life as though I was tightly holding on to all my precious things. I did not want to lose them, did not want them to be harmed. There have always been things that I held dear, keeping them safe in tight bundles close inside my heart.

I am beginning to learn the joy of abandonment. My life is full of dear and precious things, but I hold them more with a open hand than a clenched and protecting grip. Nothing feels more precious to me than my own heart, and now I allow it full freedom to be carried away like fleeting seeds dancing in gentle winds.

What comes my way, I try to give myself completely to it. The infinite joy of free-fall has infected my heart, and I abandon myself to it routinely. The freedom of neither grasping to possess or shielding to avoid pain has slowly taken me into a world I did not know existed. It is a place of abandonment.

I have had to abandon so many notions to feel this great undefined presence. The fearful void of emptiness is now a beckoning haven, an embracing wholeness that is without bounds.

To enter this realm, I remove all that seems to impede and limit me. I not only leave my shoes at the door, but all that falsely clothes me is left there as well. To experience wholesome abandonment, I am entering the deep well without a bucket, giving myself wholly to it, not attempting to contain it.

I am immersed in the full swirling spring of energy and desire without any attempt to hold or contain it. I am abandoning myself to the flowing stream of my life. I am amazed where it takes me each day.

I do not allow myself to feel regrets. There is very little in my life which I hold with regret. I think regrets are a kind of self-serving, shielding from acceptance of the reality of what has transpired and which I might have been responsible for. I try not to have anything I regret or might yet regret.

Refusing to regret is part of my way of accepting, embracing what is and what has been. I choose not to live in a world of wishing how things might have been or even what might be. I want only the present to be real for me.

I may learn from the past, even make resolve after reviewing the past. But there is nothing I can do or want to do to change it. I cannot regret it away, so why bother? I have no agency over the past. I only have agency in the present. I have no agency beyond the present. I have no agency about the past or the future.

I want to live today in such a way that I will not be tempted to have regrets. I want to embrace each moment with the conviction that this is what I choose, this is what I want to be, this is now a permanent part of me. I choose to have no regrets.

It is happening once again. What I half expected to discover has become a tangible reality and an intimate part of me. I am being surprisingly transformed once again, and a little as I suspected I might be. My anticipated future has become my here and now, but with its own unforeseen and surprising savor.

The discovery and awareness is once again bursting with surprise and excitement, even while it has so many contours of an expected familiar.

It may have begun, though I am not certain, several years ago. Something like an inner eye, a new, penetrating and formless vision suddenly took hold of me. It has been an experience I half expected, I thought it could happen. But it also caught me completely by surprise.

The sudden newness frightened me. It had such a new and unfamiliar patina that I at first thought I had surely harmed, damaged my physical mind. Though half expected, even encouraged, this opening of awareness was unlike any previous experience of awareness.

I instantly felt an openness that was so formless, without dimension, seemingly empty of space. I had entered into something new that still felt somewhat familiar in vague ways. I had an earlier notion that this way of seeing with altered vision might exist, but the sudden experience was bubbling with strange newness, fresh uncertainty, engulfing encounter.

Now I find that I can revisit what I discovered without the same fear and surprise. Daily, I go to many experiences with the same warm, soothing and familiar openness of on-going discovery.

The same feeling has arisen in my encounter with mushrooms who brought with them a similar discovery. I had vaguely expected that they might have an effect on me not unlike my open full and formless experience that had already become familiar. I half expected something like I experience with deep concentration.

And so it turned out as they worked their age-old magic on my body, and all of me fell under their spell so willingly. The feeling was so familiar as my awareness expanded intimately to all that came to my senses. For me, the main difference was that the awareness came as an effortless movement, even though I am certain that my anticipation and intention gave freedom to the mushrooms. I was open to all I came across. It was so new, exciting and bright. Still the discovery felt so familiar and welcoming.

So has my sudden discovery of the real and fictitious Molly once conjured by James Joyce and now appearing before me. The discovery is a surprise mainly in its timing and depth. Yet it is such a strange, enchanting blend of bright newness and comforting familiar. The experience is beyond anything I had previously experienced. And it feels like a place I have been for several years.

My senses are excited by a fresh and crisp newness. My awareness is intoxicated by a reality I suspected but never knew existed. Yet the discovery is also so familiar and has fit like a hand in a glove. The feeling is as familiar as my habitual morning walk through my garden.

All is nestled, it seems, in the expanse of that opened vision that occurred several years ago in the midst of fright, surprise and familiarity. It is the same nestling of open newness and free-fall familiarity I experience daily on my meditation pillow and that I have felt in the embrace of mushroom.

All is fresh and new with discovery and still has such a familiar tone and tempo. It feels like a continuity with my sweet early-morning garden walk. It is in step with how I experience the world since the veils fell from my inner vision several years ago. Once again, the discovered experience is beyond anything I had imagined and it has the flavor of what I also suspected might be. Anticipated but without preconception.

Discovery is an interesting, almost paradoxical thing. It only occurs when I intentionally look and somewhat anticipate what I might find. It also occurs when I am uncommitted and open to be surprised by what I might find. Rising from open anticipation, discovery continues to bring me something totally unexpected, surprising and exciting.

I suppose it can sound a bit profound to describe a good life as being the pursuit and experience of joy. For me it is becoming more of a pursuit and experience of fun.

Having fun, of course, is typically joyful. I think having fun is replete with joy for me. There is also a kind of relaxed bliss when I am having fun. Joy almost feels a touch stoic and staid by comparison. I relish the exuberance that typically accompanies fun. There is a release of control.

Joy has the feeling of depth and engagement. Fun is all that too, but with more laughter and shouts. No second thoughts. It just exists, with confidence and without reflection.

I often experience joy as a gardener and I think I am moving more into a realization that I am simply having fun. Gardening is no less serious, it embodies no less experience of awareness. Gardening has now more lightness and exuberance for me. Much less thought about success or outcomes, even when those linger in the shadows of fun.

What might have once been joyful work I often recognize as having now become simply fun. The same actions, the same motions are present, but they have changed slightly. Gardening has become a little different. More fun.

Maybe I am simply becoming more child-like. Like a child, I like having fun. Life is more like a playground. It has affected how I meet my friends. I am pleasantly aware that my companions give me joy. On that I am deeply focused. I also know my time spent with them is fun.

There have been many people I have developed a relationship with and they have typically been a source of joy. I realize there was a common degree of seriousness in those relationships that attempted to ground those joy filled experiences. Perhaps it was an attempt at anchoring. With them, I sometimes saw our shared joy revolving around tasks as simple as working on projects or as complex as raising children or implementing programs.

As I age, I seem less connected to intended outcomes in the time I choose to spend with companions. I have less interest in knowing where this is going, what we intend, what we want. I have entered a time in my life when simply living this moment and having fun in it takes precedence.

I guess I like having fun, and that fun is built on a depth of experience and awareness. Is that what old people experience? Is that what we finally ripen to be able to experience? It certainly has become a measure and feature of my life: am I having fun?

It never ends, does it? I mean the peeling back of the layers that conceal mystery. As much as I already think that there is much I understand and perhaps even know, there is more to be understood and known. It lies just beyond my reach, just beyond the margins of my mind. And I love the pursuit.

I know it will not end, at least not in this current reckoning of time. My plunge into mystery will never exhaust me, and I intend to never tire. All things, everyone I meet is an invitation for me to explore further. I enjoy and delight in the gradual, tantalizing reveal.

So often these days, I find myself saying “may I realize that I no longer have a path to travel.” I do want the path to end, to reach the other shore, but perhaps today is not that day. Today is another time to unfold the mystery of every thing and every one that crosses that path I still travel. That unfolding of the next layers of mystery will continue to give me an abundance of joy.

I realize that I carry my own mystery that I am constantly exploring and revealing to others. I do not want this to be a rushed project because I think that the deep experience of intimacy is in the gradual explore, the gradual reveal of mystery. I want there always to be the part of me that is not yet obvious to me or to anyone else. The time will come when all will be revealed and known in the most intimate way possible. At that time I will have learned to experience my degree of intimacy with all things. I will eventually experience how I am connected to all things.

But that time has not yet arrived. I know in slight and revealing ways that I am connected to everyone, to all things. But there is still great mystery about that connection. Today is another opportune time to peel back the layers of mystery just a little bit more. It is another time to reveal and to discover. It is a wonderful time to plunge into the mystery that awaits.

For me to speak of the world around me as an illusion is not the same to say that it is not real. The illusory nature of my world, so often spoken of in Buddhist circles, is not for me the same as saying it is unreal.

The illusory world in which I exist is more like what I experience in vivid dreams. My waking moments are more like being in a similar kind of dream world. Things seem no less real than they do when I am asleep and dreaming.

When I am sleeping, I sometimes experience a small amount of agency. I am able to steer the direction my dream is going. When I am awake, not sleeping, I obviously have greater agency and can have a significant effect on where my illusory, not-sleeping dream world goes. I am aware that all my actions have outcomes and consequences, and so I have a great amount of agency in how my not-sleeping world evolves.

Even in my not-sleeping dream world, the idea of waking up has relevance. The name commonly given to the Buddha is based on “the awakened one.” For me becoming awakened means to wake from a world of inattention and habituation. My being awakened means to live in a world where consciousness is alert and vigilant. Perhaps it is still a world of dreaming, but my awakened experience is characterized more by bliss, clarity and non-conceptual awareness.

My sensory world is certainly real, even if it is illusory, like a dream. Becoming wakened to the illusory nature of that dream world helps me see that there is also a deeper reality that is beyond forms and concepts. I consider that deeper reality to be accessible to the degree that I wake up. It is possible to experience that reality that exists beyond what my senses tell me.

I still consider my sensory experience to be real and is itself a storehouse of richness. I indulge in the experience of sensory contact with my not-sleeping dreamworld, I open my heart to what I see and touch. In doing so, I also seem to have a habitual free fall into the deeper reality as well. It all is real.

There I go again, sitting on the edge of my bed as I go over the scheduled events for today and for the several days to come. I am planning. I think of what I will wear today, what I will eat, when I will leave for the memorial event later this afternoon.

Then Rosemerry reminds me that I am once again “planting myself in the future as if it will be easier to be present then than it is right now.”

Planning is a habit of mine that has served me well, allowed me to see future outcomes, design more efficient ways of guiding programs and staff to where we want to go. It is also a habit that has become a distraction and an allurement. How much more difficult it is to dwell in what is happening right now and be fully absorbed in the present.

I am fortunate not to be pursued by what has already happened. I seem to be able to walk away from the past. I can feel the absence and emptiness for what has been in the past, but I am not shackled by regrets. I am not readily pursued by what has been.

The future is another matter. Perhaps I simply feel and yield to the deep magnetism and energy of desire that makes me want to have 20/20 vision of what is to come, to anticipate the next moment. I want to be prepared, and so I think that everything will fall into place if I plan and anticipate well. Sometimes that actually is true, and planning often has a favorable outcome. But it comes at a huge price.

I think that I miss the deep joy of what it is like to be present. So that is becoming more of my focus these days. I try not to think about where this or that will lead. Instead I concentrate on what is taking place right now. I enjoy it more. I understand it more. I feel more whole. I am more connected. My feet feel the ground.

Thank you, Rosemerry, for the reminder .

I wonder if there is a cosmic me. I’m starting to think of the whole cosmos and me as being one. It is an outrageous reach, but it feels intuitively right.

Actually, it is a kind of contradiction because there really is no “me”, and I am beginning to appreciate this. There is a tenacious illusion of self that I struggle to see around and beyond. As I attempt to to see that there is no self, then all that remains is the all expansive, all including, all possibility cosmos. And I think that cosmos and I are the same.

The crusty, persistent notion of self stands between my paltry experience of living as a human being and the experience of a vastness I am not yet able to grasp. But I’m reaching.

From a strictly materialistic point of view held by contemporary science, there is nothing in me that has not been there since the very beginning. Everything in me existed at the moment there was space and time. Science says that the material me was there at the moment we now call the Big Bang.

What existed before that “first” moment is debated and subject to much speculation. But I feel certain that every part of my physical body has been in existence since just before that first nano second of time when all the cosmos was physically united. That signature of singular cosmic oneness is still carried in my body.

It is fanciful, maybe poetic to say that we are made of star dust, but it goes back before then, before there were stars. Every part of material me, every component has been in existence since the beginning and came from the same original something.

I am made up of many parts that all point back to a common point of origin when time and space as we now imagine it first appeared. As a material entity I am intimately linked to all the cosmos. If I am capable of imagining it, I am inseparable from all that is, from the whole cosmos. I am cosmic, cosmic me.

For my mind to grasp what it is like to be part of this cosmic whole, I have to rid myself of any traditional notions of separateness. I have to rid myself of all the distractions I have made to get through my conventional way of living. But once I can rid myself of all these imagined distinctions, I see that there is no-thing, only emptiness. The cosmic me is emptiness.

The cosmos is an emptiness that is not a “without” except that there is nothing I have imagined. It is an emptiness that is all-embracing. all-containing, all-possibility. It is the cosmos as it really is and not as I imagine and as my senses encourage to see.

It is in this realm of emptiness that I really meet the cosmic me. It is there that I realize my consciousness is not separate but is an aspect of all consciousness. If there is anything I can regard as a me, it is the cosmic all. The all is cosmic me.

While I was growing up, it seemed that no one explained things to me. So I had to figure it out myself. For the most part, that meant I turned to books. I made many trips to the distant library, returning with new-found treasures in the basket of my Schwin bicycle. I found what I sought in reading. In the world of printed words.

Not that much has changed. People are still somewhat difficult for me to understand and I often turn my nose up at any suggestion that I should take this path or that. I definitely resist social patterns of how to behave. I have a companion stack of books at the ready, sitting on the table made entirely of glass next to my well-worn red leather chair. My books are my refuge, as much as they were in the days I pedaled to the library to replenish my supply.

I am following my own path. It is a path that no one has mapped out for me, and a path that calls to me and I step forward. I have no notion where it leads. But I am sure that I will be holding a book under my arm to accompany me along the way. I let go of most else, but books continue to be my refuge.