Many of you know, I’m sure, about the groundbreaking work of Stephen Levine. The attempt to find meaning in life spans every generation, from our teens, to midlife, and especially to those of us facing the twilight of our lives.
The Sun enters Pisces today, bringing our attention to the magic and illusion of experiences that lie beyond the veil. Under the influence of Pisces we can imagine our world differently, and find new meaning in unexpected ways. The traditional ruler of Pisces is Jupiter, the planet that defines meaning so I thought this would be an appropriate time to share an excerpt of this beautiful essay. You can read the piece in its entirety here.
Confronting loss the meaning of life changes. Searching for meaning and purpose leaves us wandering and bewildered. What was ordinary yesterday becomes precious today. What was precious yesterday seems dull and lusterless. What we liked becomes uninteresting, what we loved becomes everything.
There is a delicate balance that needs to be honored in the finding of “meaning “ in any event or state of mind: for many finding meaning may be necessary for the “closure” that is an opening into the letting go that is letting be, an integration into the heart, a changing of levels at which loss is experience. Closure, a level of finishing unfinished business, is often the term used by survivors of a violent crime when the antagonist is punished. But for most the wound is not so obvious and “more than meaning” may be required. …
We question, particularly when we are experiencing loss, the meaning of our birth and death and insist that the answer has to come from some supra-rational source. But it is difficult to uncover it from this perspective. The meaning of life has to come from us. And the most satisfying of those meanings always arise from love: the love of others, the love of work, the love of God, the love of the pilgrimage toward the heart, the love of the art and science of self-discovery. It is from love’s absence that the world often seems the most meaningless.
In a life that many say would not be worth living if it had no meaning we discover that the meaning to life is the meaning we offer it. The aspiration to know the whole of us.
We can find no secret from on high that somehow reveals to us at last the reason we seem so often to be discomforted.
As life continues to change the question “Who am I and what am I doing here?” peels back levels and levels of what we took for granted to see what was bestowed at birth, the potential for going beyond our ordinary and extraordinary suffering to reveal something worth living for. …
How we approach our not knowing what comes next is what gives meaning to our life.
When we whole heartedly surrender into our not knowing with what is referred to as “don’t know mind” an openness and vulnerability to deeper and deeper truth rises from our inborn unknown wisdom. What is exposed seems somehow already so deeply known yet the surprise of its diamond clarity overwhelms one with humility and gratitude.
In that stillness, in that space between breaths, between thoughts, between lives, something is suddenly remembered. Something it seems impossible to ever have forgotten . And in every fiber of our Being we know that love is the only rational act of a lifetime.
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