Reasonless Joy

This is post #9 in the Journey to the Heart series.

“Joy is a gift. It appears almost imperceptibly, without warning, like a morning sunrise lighting our bedroom while we sleep.” --Melanie Beattie, Journey to the Heart

March 3, 2024:

A few days after the big, important conversation…the one where we finally got real, I went up to the mountains for a few days of quiet. By day I sat in a chair on the deck watching the river as it rushed on to wherever it was going. Hour after hour it’s energy surrounded me. Filled me. And the knots inside me began to release their grip.

At night I lay under the stars, howled at the full moon, and wondered why it took so many decades of life to really see…to feel the wonder and awe of nature. Of life. But I felt it then. So intensely that it filled every crevasse of my being.

And it changed me. Opened me up and filled me with a deep and abiding connection. To myself, to the earth, to totality. I felt a part of everything. Free in a way I had never before experienced.

And I wondered, is this what it feels like to truly surrender? Not just part of me but all of me? Is this what the yogic teachings mean when they talk about becoming ONE with the universe? One with Source? I was so deeply, radically in love…with everyone and everything.

With myself. And with life.

I threw back the covers and padded into the bathroom. As I was brushing my teeth on my final morning there, it occurred to me that never in my life had I ever even considered the idea that I could be alone. And happy. And yet, here I was. Alone. And happy.

From the inside out.

Was this what it meant to be free? Not from him, but from the merry-go-round of obsessive, destructive thoughts? Of the longing for the life I wanted but had no idea how to find or even what it really looked, smelled or tasted like?

Free from myself. My old self.

I sat down to meditate, and during my practice I heard these words:

Reasonless Joy.

And I knew that this, this, was the secret ingredient that has been missing from my marriage. From my life. And now that I had tasted its sweet nectar, I knew that it was the only acceptable way to live.

The only way I wanted to live.