You Are, In Fact, A Miracle
“Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience — to appreciate the fact that life is complex.”
I'd like you to entertain for a moment that the chances of you existing are so infinitesimally small that you are basically a walking, talking miracle.
Someone much better at maths than me has calculated that the probability of you existing at all - that every single one of your ancestors lived long enough to reach reproductive age, an unbroken lineage of ancestors tracing back for 4 billion years to the first single-celled organism, AND that the exact sperm and exact egg needed to create you and every single one of your ancestors happened to come together - is 1 in 10 to the power 2,685,000. That is a hell of a lot of zeros!
What do you do in your body when you contemplate that?
What is it like to tune into this paradox. Knowing that the chances of your life being the way it is are so small that it could have so easily never happened at all? And at the same time, that it couldn't have been any other way. The simultaneous wonder and inevitability of it all?
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." ~ Albert Einstein
Actually, what I believe Einstein is talking about in the full passage is the spiritual element of embodiment.
"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest -a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
We are deeply connected to the world around us. Our sense of separateness, in my opinion, is a key driver of the climate crisis and inequality. If I am embodied, if I recognise my own miraculous nature, it is impossible for me to see the planet and all its inhabitants in the same way.
I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this today. I come from a deeply practical, analytical background and that has informed a lot of my embodiment practice. And I increasingly find myself drawn to more esoteric practices - the numinous is calling!
Maybe I'm finding something lacking in the mind-body (body-mind) paradigm. Where's the spirit in there? What would it be like to embrace mind, body and soul? For all three of those wisdoms to be equally valued?
I'd love to hear your thoughts as I'm inquiring about this myself.
In the meantime, here is a poet's reflection of your divinity.
Who You Are
Who you are is so much more than what you do. The essence, shining through the heart, soul, and center, the bare and bold truth of you does not lie in your to-do list. You are not just at the surface of your skin, not just the impulse to arrange the muscles of your face into a smile or a frown, not jut boundless energy, or bone wearying fatigue. Delve deeper. You are divinity; the vast and open sky of spirit. It's the light of God, the ember at your core, the passion and the presence, the timeless, deathless essence of you that reaches out and touches me. Who you are transcends fear and turns suffering into liberation. Who you are is love.
~ Danna Faulds