THE STEP TO OTHERS

“We wander and think no one will ever find us. And lifting our sorry head, we are next to each other.”

~ Mark Nepo

We imagine that so many conditions are prerequisite to finding love, when all that is required is that, like a man stepping from a boat to a dock, we step over the small gap that exists between us. Often there is nothing to prepare for, nothing to set up in advance - just to step over what separates us and to land in what is before us.

But, giving in to our fears, we widen the gap in creating conditions that must be filled before stepping toward one another. This is how we invest in the building of credentials and lifestyles and bank accounts that are often distractions from the simple and essential need to be held. In this way, we move up and down and around, but seldom straight into what will give us love.

To know love we must do more than understand, we must land and enter. Before we step, the gap to others seems life a canyon. But stepping anyway, the separations we move through look so much smaller once crossed. Often the thing feared, once crossed, turns out to be an unexpected bridge from which we can see who we were and who we are becoming.

~ Center yourself and bring into focus the gap between you and others.

~ As you inhale, bring more of others into that gap.

~ As you exhale, extend more of who you are into that gap.

~ As you breathe, let the lines of separation blur.

The Book of Awakening

~ Mark Nepo