Finding My Balance

Golden Sunrise at Sea by Atanu Chakraborty

I find a place…for my elbow to rest on. A platform that is a good space to give me relief. My elbow finds balance on a solid surface, my head rests in my palm sideways. My mind finds some moments of peace.

The platform turns out to be a floating piece. It starts to shift, putting my elbow and my rest, out of balance. I could rely on it but only for a while.

Pulses of life, stir through the surroundings of the iceberg where I was resting my elbow. The solidity of the iceberg now seems shaken.

Shock of the coldness hits my face as the elbow slides off. I am thrown out of my comfort space.

I have been seeking concepts and beliefs and relations and interactions to depend on, for balance. To rely on, when challenged. Only to find out that they are all floating icebergs.

Lean on anything a bit too much, and you plunge into the cold deep abyss of the sea of truthful revelations, eventually.

Some icebergs are memories that we escape to. Trying to find any semblance of joy or pleasure or balance or support that we felt at a different time. As all icebergs, this one too, serves only for a while.

I have sought it in persons and relationships sometimes. Only that I am an iceberg for others too, sought out to balance some need in them. Oftentimes, each ends up blaming the other iceberg, for not staying steady and still, for them to lean on.

I decide to walk on to dry grounds, with none of the unreliable icebergs around to entice me. There are trees to rest under and the lush grass on solid ground, looks fulfilling. I will now depend on the nurturing Mother Earth to hold me, to support me. I find rest in the shade under a vibrant tree.

It seems like I have found my solace and semblance of balance that I can finally rely on. Only until …the winds start howling and the skies turn dark and shower me with piercing drops of revelations, leaving me drenched in the cold again.

Sometimes it wasn’t even the furious weather that left me all lost on the face of the planet. My own thoughts could create a tornado within, that left me as if, there is no ground to stand on.

“Where do I really rest? Mother Earth! Where on earth can I just rest?” I cried in despair, kneeling down with my head hung low.

Mother Earth, as if smiled, while continuing her own journey through the void, around the sun, not knowing what, comets and storms and humans, might hurl at her, at any time.

Nothing seems to be at rest. Relentless movement. We go on while coloring our perception with the illusion of support and stability.

At times, memories of someone and the conversations, color our days or months. Giving a sense of balance to the emptiness in the place we call home. The home that stands on the compassion of the planet and it’s time bound stability.

There are times I am totally present with those physically with me. And I become aware of the hurricanes within them, uprooting my sense of balance.

I also often become dependent on other people for my soul nourishment and direction to my human mind. Every time I become completely dependent, that iceberg plops under.

In my sane mind I realize that they have gone away seeking their own nourishment, or might have faltered their own of self depletion. In my human mind I sometimes blame them for not being there for me anymore.

After many such hurricanes and toppling under of icebergs, I finally realize there is this vast ocean of space within me. The more I dive into the center of it, the more stability I find.

I begin to sit with myself more often, without leaning.

I feel more grounded as I allow a deep breath in, into the expansiveness of my being, and empty it out from the core of my being, as softly and smoothly as I can. The more I rely on my own ability, to glide on the current of the life force, flowing through me with the breath, the more rooted I get in the stability of my own being. The platform I lean on is not tangible yet so plausible.

A sense of trust and surrender and choices of possibility and tremendous courage, gives me an easy resolve of steadiness, and the experience of innate balance.

I wobble at times, escape into known comforts sometimes, fear the unknown darkness sometimes, and then find my balance again, as I recognize it all for what it is.

The darkness is pure nothing until I fill it with something. Its spirit is illuminated with each breath and awareness that comes. The silence is rich with the knowing and the perceiving and the feeling that guides me, unless it is purely divine silence.

A warmth develops within me, that balances out the coldness of any sharp revelations. It flows through me, which feels like love in some form or kind.

That’s how, I find my center and balance, time and again, until I fall off, time and again …

 

Originally published in This Glorious Mess on Medium