Today, as I looked into the mirror I realized that my face is melting. Not that mind-blowing, scary scene melting reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie. More of a slow melt happening over decades.
Nonetheless, it is melting. As are all the other bits of me.
The earth seems to be drawing my body downwards, calling for a reclamation of borrowed parts; minerals, metals, organic matter - earth, air, fire, water. As if I have already lived long on resources somehow designed to create what I think of my 'self'. Resources collected from the living body of the 'mother', and apparently she'd like to have them back now, thank you very much.
This calling is clear in the developing lines on my face. Evidence that the earth is pulling once supple skin downwards resulting in deepening darts and furrows that were not there even just yesterday. It's also evident in the apparent weightiness of my body, no longer buoyant and light as I remember it being in my youth, it now seems an effort to coax it around from place to place as I go about my day.
If I quiet my mind and still my body, staying attentive to the moment, I can almost hear the earth as she calls, beckoning the various elements back to her bosom, back to her self, the incubator of all life. In these moments, rather than becoming alarmed at the thought of total body-to-planetary integration, I begin to hear a sort of melody, a song so familiar but so seldom heard. This melody is the song of my True Self. The self that does not need a mass of organic matter for transportation, survival or expression. My original Light Self. The self that was present at the moment of my earthy conception. The one that said, "Right on! I can do this! Live this life with joy and gusto and creativity!"
Long ago it seems that I stopped listening to that song. But, now I understand that it's been there all along, just below the cacophony of life. I only needed to turn an ear towards the music of my soul, the sound of my inner voice to realize that there really is more to me than changing body parts, slowly melting away.