“We humans are both miracles and catastrophes. We must acknowledge both death and joy, horror and awe. It is an astonishment to be alive, and life calls on us to be astonished; but lifelong astonishment will take iron-willed discipline. Wake – over and over. Weep for this world and gasp for it. Wake, and pay attention to our mortality, to the precise ways in which beauty cuts through us. Pay attention to the softness of skin and the majesty of hands and feet. Attend — real, sustained, unflinching attention — to what this life, with its disasters and delights, demands of you.” John Donne, 1623
Four hundred years ago, John Donne, an English poet and scholar, implored us to be constantly astonished, fiercely disciplined, and unflinchingly attentive – to wake and weep for life’s disasters, demands, and delights. To gasp at its beauty. Ahh, if only we would listen more closely to the wisdom of the past.
In my years on this planet – as a reader, writer, and seeker of truth – I have found there are four actions that enable us to live the kind of life Donne had in mind:
Awake
Notice
Experience
Welcome
These actions conveniently form the acronym ANEW. Experience each moment ANEW. Let’s take a look at what each of those actions look like:
Awake: It is no surprise that the word “awake” appears 89 times in the bible. Waking up is a prerequisite to spiritual growth. Henry David Thoreau realized this when he wrote, “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
Awakening means not only to be self-aware but also to be conscious of what’s going on in and around us at any given moment. According to Ken Wilber, the five stages of waking up are: Asleep, Dreaming, Awake, Witnessing, and Unifying Consciously. This scale enables us to diagnose and develop our spiritual functioning. For more on those stages, go to: https://rickbellingham.com/2019/12/03/transcendence-and-inclusion/
Witnessing implies that we are aware of our awareness, i.e. we have a crystallized essence that impartially and objectively observes how our physical, emotional, and intellectual functions are operating in any given moment. To unify consciously means that we have reached a state of harmonizing all with all. Go to: https://www.amazon.com/Harmonize-All-You-Ahead-Self-Development/dp/B0B36QM7Q8
In short, when we are awake, we experience a highly attentive state of being in which we notice freshly, precisely, and unflinchingly.
Notice: Susan B. Anthony once said, “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.” I love that quote because it’s an astute observation and because it suggests how easy it is to fool ourselves into thinking we are always fully conscious. R.D. Laing takes this notion to another level: “The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.” Laing understood the power of being aware of awareness with all its strengths and limitations. Yes, we need to notice how we are failing to notice.
The first step is to notice how much time we are spending in reactive, addictive, or creative states. How much of our time do we spend lashing out or being defensive – riled up? How much of our time do we feel driven or obsessed – stressed out? When we are in any of these states, we are failing to notice that we are failing to notice. On the other hand, how much of our time do we find ourselves in a curious and creative space – calm and clear? In a calm and clear state, we are more likely to notice nuance and subtleties. For more on noticing, go to https://rickbellingham.com/2022/04/28/change/
Experience: Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived circa 500 BCE, once said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” This quote captures beautifully how we are constantly changing in a constantly changing world. Every moment is new because conditions have changed and because we have changed. The first question is, “Did we notice?” The second question is, “Did we fully experience the changes?”
In my meditation each morning, I try to experience as fully as possible several different states of being: feeling grounded, boundless, weightless, energized, cleansed, and balanced. I experience those states by welcoming cosmic energy to flow up, out and beyond my body into endless space and then in, down and through my body to the solid earth. In qigong, this practice is called feet touch earth, head touches sky. There are many other possibilities for experiencing sublime states. If you would like to experience these ideas more deeply, go to: https://rickbellingham.com/2022/04/26/30-steps-on-the-path-to-harmony/
Welcome: Emily Dickinson said, “the soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” I have never thought of Emily Dickinson as someone who welcomed ecstatic experiences given the limited environment in which she confined herself, but this quote made me wonder how she used her imagination to create new experiences. While her poetry reflects an adherence to disappearance, confinement and radical solitude, perhaps she experienced joy from her solitary retreat from society. Reflecting on her life and poetry made me realize that each of us needs to find our own path to joy.
While prolonged solitude is not a path I would choose, it seemed to work for Emily. The point is that she welcomed ecstatic experiences in her own way. We can all learn from her poems and her choices.
There are so many ways we can be more welcoming in our lives. We can welcome whatever each day brings us. As Unitarians like to say, “This is the day we have been given, rejoice and be glad in it.” Some days are harder than others, but the idea is still compelling. Every day will not be perfect. Some days may even be disastrous or devastating. Still, we can welcome whatever gifts may come from whatever moment we are in.
We can welcome new ideas into our lives, we can welcome new people into our neighborhood, we can welcome new ways of being, we can welcome each breath we are given. As I was reflecting on this idea, I welcomed a poem that I posted here: https://rickbellingham.com/2022/02/08/welcoming/
Yes, it seems to me that life is really about seeing each moment ANEW: Awake, Notice, Experience, and Welcome. As John Donne said: “We humans are both miracles and catastrophes. We must acknowledge both death and joy, horror and awe. It is an astonishment to be alive, and life calls on us to be astonished; but lifelong astonishment will take iron-willed discipline.
I’m hoping we can develop the discipline to be constantly astonished. I’m hoping we can all start seeing life in fresh, new ways. I’m hoping we can all have more moments of ecstasy and joy in our own ways. May it be so.
Also published on Medium.
