MEANING

"I'm not searching for the meaning of life, but I'm looking for meaning within my life." David Lowery

I've been questioning my path, purpose- really the meaning in my life. As my spiritual community is a deep state of change and groundlessness, I have fallen into a space of questioning EVERYTHING and not knowing ANYTHING. It's been challenging, depressing, eye-opening and destabilizing. 

It brought me to thinking about teaching Awaken The Dance, I've done it for soooo long, I've been pondering its role in my life. Is this something that brings me meaning? Is it useful in the world? Should I continue? Am I over it? 

Ironically, this week our focus has been, yes, meaning. So I went in to teach my Monday class, not on making meaning or creating meaning, but on waking up to the meaning that we are already in contact with. The meaning we get from the ordinary and sacred moments in our life. And wouldn't you know, class f-ing rocked. It was deep and funny and powerful and sweet and tender and hard, and utterly exactly what I always hoped Awaken The Dance would be. It was real. So I'm leaving class high on dance and community, thinking to myself, "Wow, this is SO meaningful and this class brings SO much meaning to my life and the lives of my dancers."

Guess what happened next?

I freaking got in a car accident. Not later in the day, not even 30 min. later, right freaking then, leaving the parking lot of class.

And it was a bad one. Not a fender bender. The hood of my car looks like an elephant sat on it. I have whiplash and a minor concussion. I'm ok, truly, just tired and stiff. But I'm taking immaculate care of my body and doing ok. Hell yes, I'm dancing all week, what else can I do, it's how I heal, but I digress.

My thoughts immediately direct towards making meaning. Like, what the F? I've just reaffirmed my glorious reason for being on this earth and benefitting beings, all feels divinely aligned and smackadoodledoo, I'm all up in someone's fender. And I wasn't distracted, or not being careful, it literally came out of the blue. 

I start pondering karma, and life lessons, and what I am I supposed to know or wake up to, but guess what? Life happens, shit happens, disasters happen, in ways we can't pretend to understand. Karma unfolds over lifetimes, not moments. So as I uselessly grasp for meaning, I am also making a conscious choice.

I am choosing to align with the message I was teaching Monday morning. Meaning can arise at any moment, in any way. This accident was another moment of waking up to the absolute unknown, to impermanence, to our lack of control over basically anything except our reaction to a given situation. And so I'm choosing to react with surrender. I'm surrendering to my exhaustion and body's healing process. I'm surrendering to the endless phone calls with insurance agents and the fact that my car may be totaled and I can't buy a new one. I'm choosing to surrender to the tightness in my neck and the burn in my lower back. What else can I do? The meaning of life, just may be, to live it, and try to be helpful while we're here. So I'm living it, on life's terms. For the moment. That's all we have anyways, right? This moment.