Whenever I end, in those marvelous moments when it's
all over for
Laurence Platt,
that's when I'm who I really am. By "end" and "all over" I'm not
speaking about death. There's an ongoing conversation about what
happens after death - the jury's still out on that one.
This conversation, however, isn't about life after death.
This conversation's about what's here, what's left when who
I've always considered myself to be ends, is over, is
recontextualized
while I'm alive.
In those moments when it's
all over for the
identity I call Laurence Platt,
that's when I'm most alive. It's what happens when I
discover characteristics of myself I was once certain were
the real me are actually built on liquefying
ground, on one
inauthenticity
on top of another, on one false start on top of another.
At worst, I abandon those characteristics. At best, I clean up any
mess
they've made with people, complete them, then discard them. In this way
I let go of that which keeps me in the way of my own life.
Once I've let go of that which keeps me in the way of my own life, once
I get out of the way of my own life, something shows up
bright, open, awake, and simply lovely. The questions "What
is it?" / "Who are you?" are interchangeably
directed at this new presencing - whatever it is.
I'm truly here, just as I was before, but now only more so. I'm
looking to distinguish what this is that's come, now that
I've gotten out of the way of my own life. How do I language it?
Indeed, can it be languaged at all? Or could it be simply
pure context: ineffable, beyond
language? What is this that's here when I'm alive
and when I'm not in the way? What's
present when who I've always erroneously considered myself
to be gets out of the way? I'm experiencing*
therefore I'm alive. But the individual I call
I
who shows up in my experience of me, isn't the presencing I'm referring
to.
There's suddenly shock and delight both at the same time. This new
presencing that's come is just me, who I really am, who we all
really are: space, source, possibility.
It's worth taking the time to sit with and get clear on the apparent
convolutedness of this way of languaging I. It shouldn't come as any
surprise to anyone not if but when the language of
transformation appears convoluted from time to time. We've
mis-identified who we really are for so long that
by now all the languaging we've developed to bring forth who we are is
based on an error of identification. It's no wonder when we add
rigor
to fluid sounding language to correct this error, that its correctly
articulated accurate form may sound convoluted in a not yet fully
transformed listening.
Personally I've got a great deal of respect for the classic rules of
the King's English parsing, grammar, and syntax. I also
recognize that being transformed, we've gone beyond the boundaries of
the context in which they were originally written. A new language may
need to be invented, or at least our current language's classic rules
of parsing, grammar, and syntax may need to be reworked to meet the
challenges inherent in inventing and speaking
Conversations For Transformation.
I don't know
why
it's this way. This simply seems to be the way it
works.
With these provisos in place, my inquiry into who I really
am can continue, no longer interrupted by the shrill school
marm voice in my own head slapping my wrist for violating the
classic rules of parsing, grammar, and syntax.
So: if I isn't me and simply shows up for me, then what's the aspect of
me in which I shows up?
More than as a mere answer to the question "Who am I?",
who I am
for myself is an experience, an experience prior to all
questions, prior to all answers. Indeed,
who I am
for myself is an experience without which neither questioning nor
answering are possible.
I notice what's calling me to ask after the question "Who am I?" is the
question "What's my experience of me
who I am?".
When I stop and look, my experience of me
who I am
is I'm an empty clearing in nothing in which the events of
my life show up, indeed in which Life itself shows up.
What's interesting to me about this experience is when I tell the stone
cold unflinching truth about it, this experience is not
only whole, complete, and stand alone: it's also blissful.