I feel empty some days. Other days old and tired.

I feel sad some days. Other days distracted or lazy.

I feel something every day, without fail.

My inner world is galaxies upon galaxies of emotions. Never ending and always expanding.

Multiply that by however many people are actually alive right now.

Emotions are everywhere, all the time. A swarm of locusts that won’t clear.

For better (emotions are filled with richness) or for worse (emotions cloud clear thinking more often than not), emotions are something we all have to contend with.

In Zen Buddhism there is a teaching that we can only appreciate the fullness of the moon if it is occasionally obscured by the clouds.

The moon is the pure brightness of being and the emotions are the clouds that obscure our connection with our natural inner selves.

If we take time to sit quietly and be with ourselves, whether in meditation, mindfulness, prayer or just sitting, then we can uncover the inner light which is our natural state of being.

This light helps us identify emotions, and lets the emotions pass by us like clouds in the night—slightly obscuring but, with practice, never extinguishing the moonlight coming from deep within each of us.

I sit quietly, watching my inner light grow brighter. I see my old world with new eyes. I enter that world centered in myself and therefore centered all things.

I bring more of my light to the world.

~

Author & Artist: Mike Medaglia

Editors: Khara-Jade Warren; Emily Bartran 

~