Each day is a solitary trek towards inner peace. I haven't reached the peak, but I'm climbing the mountain. When I rub my sleep soaked eyes at the break of morning, I'm already asking myself where I can find it.
A peace-driven life. What's that look like?
Here in the Wild West (capitalist free market), you're told you can buy it. There are so many spiritual bypasses. We all take 'em. Sure, we can easily perform 'peace', but feeling it internally can't be faked. And since life is a giant candy store, it's inevitable we get lost trying to find it.
When we get stuck in our wants, we can't always be trusted to know what inner peace actually entails.
Maybe it's simple and undressed. Perhaps it's just being mindful of the present moment, and maintaining an acute awareness of the limited time and resources we have to spend our energy. But because we're soldiers in a war against our own mortality, we don't often allow the quiet reverberations necessary for such discoveries.
So how do we locate it through all the noise? Perhaps that's my spiritual mission, of sorts.
Is it found on slow walks in winding forests with leaves crunching underfoot, immersive sound baths that send messages to other realms, or 5-minute flute meditations? Maybe for me.
Perhaps it's just a soft mindful presence, or an unyielding attunement to the things children know that we forget to know, like allowing for imaginative play, or doing things without regard for time, money, or an attachment to some preferred outcome. Sometimes I’m there with my son, and I swear I could float above the clouds.
Can inner peace be unearthed through post-punk dance parties, slutty yoga, and jettisoned expectations? Is it found watching my son run wild in a maze of inosculated trees? Is it seeing my daughter derive her worth from mastering a skill rather than just being pretty? Is it knowing these kids are going to be alright, no matter how many years I have left with them. Is it believing I'm doing an okay job at motherhood despite feeling Iike the empathy button is broken on the entire world?
Is it identity reclamation beyond master statuses and pre-ordained roles? Is it knowing you're more than just a great lay or a shitty housewife? More than a star student or a free spirit masquerading as a tightly scheduled suburban mom. Is it simply seeing yourself? Seeing that you're more than just one thing?
It's all those things, I think.
The path to peace often starts with a mess. It's like having on too many layers of clothes and feeling incredibly weighed down and then finally being naked and free by the end of it.
I'm trying to make it simple so I never feel without it. Sometimes it's laid bare through deep breaths on slow paced walks through places I haven't been, saying hello to sad strangers with faraway eyes, or voyeuristically gazing upon morning kayakers as they syncronistically glide upon the glassy waters of the river. Nothing overt or complicated. Just quietly rubbing shoulders with life, you know?
The important thing is that I've learned that it's always accessible to me. In the glow of the blinding sun, I feel it. When the rain comes down, I stay with it. When the storms roll in, I let it wash over me.
That's all I want. Peace with the inhale and exhale of every breath. Peace amid the cacophony and the pain in this broken world.
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