Every so often, quite out of the blue, I wake in the middle of the night absolutely wired with a sense of pure and utter aliveness, an awareness of being embodied and the importance and gift of that. It’s like an involuntary switch gets flicked in my mind, and that is it, I am awake.
Often, it is with an awareness of the state of the world at large, of the bigger picture and my tiny humble part within it. It is energetic sensations running through my veins, localised, potent picking up on what’s going on at large, funnelled down to this little human vessel that I borrow. It also happens on full moon.
I used to try to go back to sleep. Not anymore.
Once I realise I am simply closing my eyes and feigning rest, enough is enough. I do not resist being alive and awake.
I now recognise it straight away for what it is and I accept it with grace, then zeal.
I’m not talking here about nights where one is awake because you are worried, anxious or fearful. No certainly not that.
I’m talking about the feeling of "I’m alive and I sincerely and deeply need to do something with this intensity, this passion for life and the gift of being alive.”
Hands of the clock, Zsi Chimera
So, I sit up, turn on the lamp and write. At times like this it is easy to do so, pages and pages for hours, so focused.
Eventually it gets light and I’ve missed the main bulk of rest.
The first time I remember doing this was at university, which was an incredibly stimulating and informative time. The friends I made who opened my eyes to new ways of seeing and our shared experiences that woke me up, the existential questions and the passionate discussions. All influencing one another with delight taking us to new realms in our minds, places I had not yet accessed. Full of this vibrancy, so stimulating, we were questioning and searching.
I would wake then as I do now.
To work at night is exciting.
It is joyous to know that conventionally it is a time when I should be in slumber, in darkness, and I am not.
What really matters and concerns me most comes to the surface, from the unconscious.
The room I am awake in is quiet, the people I live with are asleep, I imagine the local neighbourhood, then further afield, everyone snoozing tucked up in their beds.
Of course there are millions of others awake too.
But in that room I am occupying, alone and quiet it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing. It is just me and the page and I am focused.
Being awake when others are unconscious is a great symbol of an appetite and an engagement in what it is to be alive, of being in this human experience.
There is a state of passionate urgency within. Everything is pregnant with potential.
So excited about being alive that you have to do something about it in an instant.
To wake while many sleep is the time to work.
To wake while many sleep is the time to work.
To wake while many sleep is the time to work.
In these dark times, now is the time to get to work.
Awake in the darkness while so many are unconscious.
Keep working.
Blog 5, published on 4/12/15
