During my life, I’ve been an expert translator of “doing” into “becoming.” Becoming is doing with a purpose and soul, but it’s still a lot of activity.
Poet David Whyte, when he was teaching at our MEA Santa Fe campus, said, “The tragedy of the to-do list is it was created by the person you were yesterday. What would it be like to drink from a deeper well based upon who you are today?”
On my recent sojourn to Baja, I realized how much I appreciate an aimless, solitary day. A day of just being with birdsong, beauty, and beams of sun. For part of an afternoon, I just stared at the flora and fauna in an abundant sand dune. It contains multitudes.
Credit: Clement Marcelet (on the recent Airbnb employee alumni retreat at the MEA Baja campus)
This brings me to this beautiful poem that speaks to our process of moving from “becoming” to “being.” I hope you enjoy it.
A Blessing for Being
By Paul Dunion (from “My Days With Emma: A Soulful Path to Elderhood”)
There are ancient rivals named Becoming and Being.
Even if you have not thought about Becoming
or talked about it, your body knows Becoming
as doing. You get educated, pursue occupational
goals, you achieve, you create a home, you pay bills
and rake leaves in Autumn.
Without a great deal of consideration, you give
Becoming the power to hold your essential worth.
And rightly so, you build, you generate, you create,
you fix, you teach and maybe you heal. However,
there comes a time when the weight of the soul’s
sacredness asks for more.
When does striving bring a fatigue to the soul?
Have you allowed yourself to feel how lost you
may become amidst the pile of actions?
Can you pause and wonder who you might be when you
crawl out from that pile?
How many successes will be enough to confirm that you are enough?
If you know the emptiness of Becoming, then
trust that knowing. Becoming has its place and
it’s not enough to birth meaning and depth.
You know the whispers of Being when you give
yourself permission to nap. There is Being in
the tenderness of deserving rest.
Deservedness is the cradle of Being. It puts
proving to rest. Proving is so easily laced
through all expressions of Becoming. Proving
hides itself behind the veils of being ambitious,
productive, creative and responsible. Proving
possesses an insatiable hunger.
We prove that we are enough, deserving of love.
We prove we are worthy of forgiveness regarding
our last transgression. We attempt to prove we
merit redemption for having loved poorly. These
strivings are of no avail; they simply place us on
the mountain with Sisyphus — forever incomplete.
Being is knocking on the door of your soul when
urgency subsides, when doing loses its tenacity
and the next best thing to do fades behind the
shadow of an incandescent light cast by the joy
of what is happening now, no matter how simple.
The gift of Being is a love asking for no proof.
-Chip
P.S. On Monday, I got a PSMA Petscan at UCSF hospital and found out that my prostate cancer has once again spread, this time to the lymph nodes around my abdomen. I will start targeted radiation at the end of next week as well as hormone depletion drugs to cut off my testosterone in feeding the cancer. They found it early enough (my PSA blood test scores have been going up by 50% each month for the past 7 months) so they feel good about this treatment path. I’m feeling surprisingly grounded and lots of love.