I will not die an unlived life

by Dawna Markova. I read this book in January. I was drawn by the title. Who wants to die having never lived? The subtitle is Reclaiming Purpose and Passion.


I sometimes wonder "what now? what next?" This stage of life has not been what I had imagined it would be. The need to be busy is constant. There is always laundry. Always yard. Always. Always. Some days are so full as to be totally exhausting--but without a core, without a reason. What am I focusing on? Too often, nothing. I do what has to be done because it has to be done for life to keep going smoothly along. Shouldn't there be a joy, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of meaning?


Markova wrote:


. . .By passion I don't mean sex or desire. . . I mean the natural life energy that exists inside each of us, urging growth. A deep and natural pulse that tells us to live from the inside out, to reach in and reach out for all that is possible to know, to contribute, and to receive. I may have lost the feeling of it right now, but I am beginning to think passion exists in the relationship between things, between the self and the rest of life, between forces in opposition to each other, between polarities and paradoxes, between and beyond the river of either/or that seems to divide so much of our world.


. . . I'm sure there are fierce yearnings of heart and soul under the smooth, flat surface of the frenetic life I was living. But for now, all I feel is empty. Under a vast and constantly changing sky, I'm surrounded by a natural dormancy where passion's spark is buried and has to be searched for.


I've found my way into this dormancy by asking questions that probably only God can answer, impossible questions that flap in my mind like sheets in the wind: How do we reclaim our lost fire? How do we remember that our love really does matter? How do we retrieve our leaking souls?


Anything capable of decay is also capable of regeneration. Passion is a given when we are young. As children we burn with it, unless it gets smothered or beaten out of us. But as adults, it becomes so elusive, as if there were thin ribbony veils of music playing someplace just beyond our everyday hearing, pale and near-transparent. How do we evoke the untamable in ourselves, that part that dreams and imagines beyond what is known? How do we open fully to what life brings us, letting it lift us and carry us?


I stumble forward in a dim light, finding my way to the vitality that is passion one step at a time. I come to four doors, closed at my heart: rage, denial, inertia, and loss. I believe most of us were taught to slam these shut, turn our backs, and lean up against them in fear. But I also believe that on the other side of these doors are passageways to our brightest fire, the choice to live fully awake and alive. (emphasis mine)





I think she is onto something. Something we know but fail to practice. We've always heard that if we do not feel great sorrow, we will not be able to feel great joy. We know there are times in life that are desperately unhappy. But how many of us feel exceptional joy at other times? Do we not, at those times, hold back a little? Afraid to feel that joy fully and completely? Various reasons, I think, superstition--if I am that joyful won't it invite catastrophe? Guilt--I don't deserve this kind of joy--I have done this or that or NOT done this or that. Fear--if I allow myself to feel so much joy, how horrible will be the aftermath. And more, as people are so varied.




I read. I read. Sometimes I think. But feeling. Well, that is not something I am comfortable with.