Balancing Life

These last months, my life has fallen into a rhythm of wakefulness and rest, work and play, inner contemplation and outer explorations. Now my days are changing again. As most of us are vaccinated here in the San Francisco area, it is becoming safer to go out, meet friends and family, eat out and mingle. Yet again, we are asked to adapt and shift gears.

This impermanence of human existence is in plain sight. I see much change that happened to me and others; in health, relationships, work... Many of my relationships have changed, some grew stronger and some weakened or dissipated. I have had all those recollections of the past, memories pulled out from a deep slumber of unconsciousness awaiting resolution or just a bit of attention. As a result of this deep internal work, new realizations and old patterns came to light. 

Once again I strive for balance between doing and being, solitude and "with others". I see many of the unhealthy patterns of social engagement I have had, many things I considered normal and willingly settled to live with. Now is a chance for renewal.
In these months I have continued to cultivate awareness as we meditators do. I am grateful for my practice and now I seem to have an increased need for solitude or perhaps it’s always been there. 

I aim to live an authentic life that is worth living. Life where my heart stays soft, feeling the pain of old things, yet free and spacious, filled with Light, Love and Beauty.

Om Shanti. Peace to All. Peace in the Heart, Peace in the Mind.

ॐ

Please enjoy this poem I wrote during the last year and that was published by local literary magazine "The Bohemian".

​The Folding and Unfolding of Grace
by Diana Meltsner

In your urging I move.
In your arms I die.
I blossom and I die
all at the same time.

You take my lips
to give this flute a voice 
only to dissolve it into silence.

The merging and dividing,
ecstasy and pain,
beauty and terror waking me up.

The folding and unfolding of 
Grace. Now and then.

​December 2020
~ The Bohemian, Notre Dame De Namur University's literary and art journal,  spring 2021