Place your left hand on your heart. Soon you will start to feel the beating that is your heart. It will feel stronger the more you focus on it. This is you. You are complete right in this moment just because your heart beats.
When I think of the phrase “engage with life,” I think external. I think me meeting the outside world and engaging with it. And I think of life as the things I do, the people I meet, the “stuff” that fills my days.
This is a part of life. There is another, rich, full part of life that doesn’t require any speaking. We engage with it whenever we step outside our houses, our cars, our cities. It can be as simple as a walk through a park or as big as camping in a wide-open forest.
There are things pulsing with life all around us that do not walk on two legs or speak our language. The ocean pulses with life, the trees have lived longer than we ever will, a mere leaf on the ground was once living. The consistent cycles of the sun and the moon mimic our own moods, cycles, and lives. There is great connection and fortitude in this natural, untouched part of life. This part we often have to go out of our way to see, to meet, to touch.
It’s worth it.
I’m going out of my way to engage with these silent teachers. I’m going out of my way to engage with these lives. To connect to them and to in turn reconnect with the deeper part of myself that sprung from this solid earth. By doing this I will reach out to my fellow humans with more compassion and love and connect to the deeper aspects of them because I have connected to the deeper aspects of me.
Step out into nature and engage with life. We will step back into our houses, offices, and cars feeling more like our true selves.
The beating beneath my hand always reminds me what’s truly important in life. Life itself.
monique minahan 