To sleepwalk through life, living with limited awareness is sometimes the most I can muster. Disconnected from those around me, I putter and feel fragmented; only one cylinder is spinning. Drawn to my bed, to live within another dimension or universe of dreams and circumstances, sleep alleviates the excessive desire for peace, tranquility, and silence. Yet responsibilities beckon, I have not the luxury of slumber for significant lengths of time. Like an automaton, my limbs make the necessary movements to complete tasks, leaving Keats’ rosebuds where ye may. Life happens without my alert consciousness. I continue to talk and walk, sleepwalking through life until I awaken with wonder and stillness to notice the deafening silence I heard not before.
The creative spirit wants to unite craft with its maker, laying words to paper, paint to canvass, and invention to blueprint. An everlasting flow of love wants to feel the bloom of passion, the joy of ecstatic excitement, and the invisible, energetic wave of affection. My natural, human instinct for relationships, lost in a sea of ephemeral mist, awaits and wants vulnerable connection between souls to inspire my heart to open. I engage in the world surrounding me only by conscious choice, a splattering of interactions I choose by active participation. My merging with the world requires alertness that sleepwalking deprives and shrinks into a cocoon of hidden abandonment.
Yet sleepwalking happens inconspicuously. The lights dim and the fog spreads, blanketing my spirit for rest. I lay hibernating until the warmth of change awakens me. I rest within, my limbs moving with the day unaware of the potential consciousness. Cognitive abilities strengthen appearances of normalcy to the external world while my emotional, dormant heart remains numb eliminating the light beyond its surface. Physical energy revs when necessary while the inability to feel emotional connection, a catharsis that engages the spirit, seems lost in a cavern of emptiness. Periodically I awaken in this dream to notice the disparity within my life, yet hunker down to salvage energy, return to peace within, and drown in the calm dream of safety, ease, and familiarity.
Sleepwalking through life limits our potential for a life with meaning. Awakening from the dreamlike state requires conscious connection between our hearts and the peripheral world. We must jar our souls, no longer hit the snooze button, but awaken when the alarm sounds. Awareness compels us to demand change for ourselves. To allow the human spirit to creatively blossom, love unconditionally, and connect with others on a deep, heartfelt level, engages the soul for a full and meaningful life. Sleeping through life eliminates risk, yet enforces lack of purpose and living fully. Slumber as the forefront of our existence fulfills responsibilities, but reduces inspiration that feeds the spirit. Eventually our light goes out and asleep we remain. To see the light, we must energetically motivate ourselves to arise, stretch to engage with our Source, and enter the realm of insight with creative and emotional expression. Opportunity, possibility, and inspiration live at this open window. Peek out, jump through, and engage life with purpose. Awaken!