"Pluto" by Bjork

Excuse me
but I just have to
explode
explode this body
off me

I'll be brand new
brand new tomorrow
a little bit tired
but brand new


There are days when I wake up refreshed. My eyes open and they feel beauty. It does not matter what they see, they just filter in beauty. The air has power. It fills me with energy and promise of joy for the day ahead. It is waking up with a feeling of spaciousness - there is room all around me. It is the spaciousness that brings delight. A citrus curiosity for what's to come. Lively living. The space is freedom. Freedom to Be. Freedom to express. This is Life. I wake up and delight at the opportunity to explore and express.

Other days I wake up tired. Still feeling the weight from the day before, I open my eyes and I am in a room - doesn't matter where - but the spaciousness is not there. It is more like the feeling of waking up in a hamster cage. I get up and I feel heavy, slow. Everything feels heavy. Monotone. There is no freshness. I have forgotten how much excitement there is in me, how much genius, how much newness. I have forgotten the truth that opens me up to the spaciousness.

There is something I frequently forget about time: it only exists RIGHT NOW. Right now has never happened before. Right now well never happen again. Right now is the only thing that exists is this moment in time. In this understanding, nothing else beyond this moment is real, therefore has no basis in reality. There is no such thing as Kayleigh from yesterday or Kayleigh in 5 months. There is only Here, Now.
When this perspective gets buried under my shoulda, woulda, coulda's and couldn'ts, cant's and other cantankerous mind chatter, life no longer feels expansive and abundant. It then feels limited.

This is where Bjork comes in: in the moment of remembrance; in the (re)realization that I am more than my past, more than my fantasized future, more than my thoughts, more than what I see. "Excuse me, but I just have to explode this body." The body is not what I am. The junk of limitations are not what I am. I am Infinite. I am Free. I am a glorious expression of all that is ME. Of course. Once you explode your body, once you become Present and enter the here and now, you'll be "brand new." Then you feel your freshness. It is the experience of rebirth everyday. Can you comprehend the exhilaration of rebirth everyday? My god. A cascade of newness. Gusts of mystery, the winds of the unknown. In a trusting spirit this is the tantalizing aphrodisiac of life: opportunity. Opportunity for anything! Then everything is brand new. Everything around you takes on the fresh quality. You are no longer bound by the confines of your limitations. You may wake up to do the same thing everyday, but you are no less brand new, no less free, no less mysterious. You are still there, infinite potential, infinite opportunity for new experience.

All you have to do is explode your body. This is the act of entering Presence. Leave everything behind. The body as metaphor for our historical and fictional vehicle of our mind; the suitcases we fill with our memories and expectations. All the limitations we pack with us on this journey through life. The things that weigh us down, that create constriction, that turn living into surviving. When you explode out of all of these things, you are brand new. And what can be said of something that is brand new? Not very much. It has to be experienced first. Experience this moment in its fullness, without limitations, without expectations.

This process is invigorating when it happens. It seems as though things could not be any other way. But then without notice, I realize I've been waking up in the monotony of my movements again. This is, perhaps, where more care and attention are needed. The experience of being brand new is still something I am learning to consciously direct - to remember to explode my body. Bjork speaks of being "a little bit tired" after this process. While I experience Presence as the invigorating breath of life, this line reminds me of the ebb and flow of experience. The Yin and Yang. The Masculine and Feminine. I seem to get caught up in the renewed sense of excitement of the mystery and opportunity of living, that it doesn't take long to crash afterwards. This is certainly a place that requires more of my attention. Stillness. Rest. Reflection. Rejuvenation. It is important to honor and listen to the continual cycle of the process of rebirth. We experience the explosive joy of being brand new, and then we rest and integrate the depths that we were able to explore in this openness. Thanks, Bjork, for reminding me.