Waking Up

My wake-up time these days seems to be around 7 a.m., unless I have to go to work. On work days, I have to be prodded by the alarm clock, and I drag myself out of the bed at 5:30 a.m. I've stopped doing yoga in the morning since I've been on this early schedule, and I miss it terribly. I'm dreaming of later classes and summer days, back on the platform swing in the morning, feeling good again. Dreaming, however, is for sleep. The day calls for action. It calls for waking up fully and getting down to the business of living.

(Image borrowed from http://lightlessboyds.blogspot.com)

This post is about waking up. Steve Pavlina has described this process as becoming more conscious. Healthy consciousness should create a desire to go on, to grow, change, and evolve even as we strive to have our needs met and see our dreams and goals come to reality. It involves the identification of resources --- looking around to see clearly what is within reach that we can draw strength and nourishment from. It involves perception and listening closely. It does not involve clinging to anything such as our routines.

Last Sunday, I decided at the last minute to go to a workshop downtown related to writing to heal. I ended up being the sole student of the poet laureate of South Carolina, Ed Madden. I couldn't believe my luck; I walked around giddy for the rest of the day. What had happened was synchronicity --- I had a need, and the universe brought me a resource. I didn't look for that resource in particular. I was looking other places for it, in fact, but then I woke up on a holy day, saw an advertisement for a literary festival that was almost over, threw on my jeans, and showed up for what opportunity had for me.

Here I'm just going to throw in a country song because it feels right to me. :>)

At some fundamental level, my awakening (and everyone's awakening) concerns our relationships, old and new, long term or temporary. Other people wake us up. Sometimes they wake us up with a beautiful breakfast (as my beloved does), but sometimes they wake us up in other ways. They make us angry, for instance, or they call us out to action when we want to be lazy. This morning, David called out to me, "You have to go vote. You should go early; it's going to take a while." It's important to me to vote, but I don't necessarily want to leap out of bed and go do it. I don't even know how I'm going to vote yet. I've been wavering for weeks. I'll decide for sure when I'm in the voting booth --- but the point is, David's right. When something is important, we should show up for it early. Then, since we're up anyway, why not take another useful action toward our goals? For me, that means getting some exercise, and getting some work done today.

What's important to you today? Are you showing up for it? Are you awake yet?

I've almost finished my coffee, and I'm ready to get out there and make something happen --- to connect with other people, to serve my students, to read and think, to write, and grow. (Cleaning the house has to fit in here somewhere, too.:>)

Pavlina reminds us that waking up is not an isolated process -- it's not a lonely path. We're in this together. If you'd like to read more about developing a conscious way of life, check out his blog post: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/05/waking-up/.