Existing Intensely

I’m a Scorpio, through and through. Astrologically, it’s pretty much all I have in my chart. All the planets and moon, rising and descending, it’s all Scorpio. 

We’ve entered Scorpio season, and my actual birth date, November 13th, is associated with the phases of the moon, the birth and death that the feminine knows so intimately. 

For most of my life, I’ve been told that I’m “too much” and that I’m “too intense” or “too passionate” and even, when I was a teenager, that I’m “more trouble than I’m worth.” 

I exist intensely. And maybe this was written in the stars. (All that Scorpio.) Maybe it also has to do with my mediation practice, the soul-voice meditation.

By meditation, I mean just breathing. By meditation, I mean living intentionally. 

The soul-voice meditation is as simple as going under water, listening to the silence that’s there, and then surfacing. It’s as simple as closing your eyes, taking a single breath to drop beneath the surface noise of what the ego’s currently insisting, and entering the heart. 

And then, with a second breath, just basking in the silence of what love sounds like. No expectations, no ultimatums, just unconditional mercy, just a wide expanse, just a love that only ever increases, just a pure, radiant, existence, like an unmined diamond. 

Then with a third breath, drenched in gratitude, seeing out now with that presence of love. 

Existing from the heart. That’s the best way to describe the soul-voice meditation and what it does essentially; it calls myself back from all times and all places. 

Scholars believe that Christ spoke Aramaic, among other languages. And the Aramaic word for death translates as “existing elsewhere.” For me, this translation or understanding of death is liberating, and also hopeful. 

First, if death is more accurately “existing elsewhere,” then death isn’t an ending. This translation implies that when the body ceases to function, this essence of who we are, this presence of love within us, mysteriously, exists elsewhere.

So, when we die, we’re not gone as in for good. We’re not unreachable. We’re not present here, in the body, or in this world. But we’re still existing, which means we’re still able to communicate, reach, and be reached by those in this world. 

Death then is not an end, but an irrevocable transition, a transformation from being present in the body, behind our eyes, to being present in a place that’s ultimately unknowable to the living.

Second, this translation of death allows us to understand the way we can practice “dying” to our egoic self, throughout our lifetime, or even for some us, several times each day.

The strength in the seven powers that Mary names in her gospel is that they compel us to exist either in the past, regretting what was, or in the future, clinging to what might be, and ransoming our present joy until we reach some distant point when we have what we think we want. 

The seven powers of the ego take us from the present moment. And the only place that we can actually create change in our lives is when we have the courage to just be with the presence of love right here within. So, every time we return from the “death” of existing elsewhere, in the past or in the future, we’re coming back to life. 

This presence within us is what transforms us. We can see and feel when someone is present behind their eyes or miles and miles away. We know when someone is existing elsewhere even when they are sitting right here beside us. 

All it takes to be present again, all it takes to come back to this body, to this world, to this one ferociously precious life, to this potent present moment, is three breaths. And this is both the easiest and hardest part about being human. Because it takes becoming aware that we are no longer present, and that’s the arduous part. It takes waking up again and again, fighting for our capacity to be here. And for those of us with histories of trauma, the work is even more intense, and the return is even more triumphant. 

It’s as if presence is our truest purpose. 

Over the years, and more recently through the pandemic, I’ve met with so many who exist intensely. So many are wanting to make this life have meaning in the face of so much death. So many want to practice this ancient art of existing fiercely straight from the heart. 

And this is the diamond-light I carry with me into this season’s dark. This is the hope I give you; existing intensely. 

With only more love,
​M.