Osprey

   

       When we open ourselves up to childlike fascination, wonder, excitement, awe, and curiosity, we increase our capacity for love. And we increase our capacity to experience the world anew.
        Think of how a little kid might look at this magnificent Osprey, maybe for the first time. The jaw dropping gleam in their eyes surpassed only by their complete rapturous engagement. They would stand there, transfixed, by what appeared to be a magic animal from a different realm. They would stare, simultaneously studying the animal and also engaged in a mindless awe.
       I know this, because this is how I experience not only this bird but lots of life. Whether its nature, the music I’m listening to, the woman I’m with, or the conversation I’m having, I strive to bring that passionate involvement, that sense of awe, wonder, curiosity, and fascination, to all my life.
       My summer at Omega and Kripalu opened up my heart and deepened my connection to my truest self. In the process, I experience both a quieting of my mind and the ignition of an engine within. I want to bring more of my fire to the world, and I want to help others find and ignite their fire. The book I’m writing will be a platform for that. But my whole life can be a platform for that too.     
       So here I am at fifty-one. I find myself with more capacity to love, more capacity to let love in - in all of its forms and manifestations - than ever in my life. I find myself with more capacity to experience the world anew. Furthermore, as I learn to more fully engage, as I learn to more fully allow, my capacity for love will only increase as I get older. Isn’t that fucking exciting? Isn’t that better than the other, conventional party line paradigm of diminishing returns of love as we get older? Isn’t the potential life altering expansions and experiences that are possible from the increasing love paradigm worth the risks? Fuck yeah.
       Fuck yeah.


©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.