the power of presence

Somewhere within the journey and process of meditating there is the realization that we cannot get present, as if manipulating thoughts could somehow drop us into an eternal experience of timelessness. Indeed, the power of now and the power of presence does not require simplicity, control, or effort. This unbound experience is more readily revealed upon the release of bound psycho-physical-emotional contractions around qualities such as victim, belonging, innocence, connection, and peace.
Deep contact with inner contractions is quite exceptional! It is the one contemplation that an entire life can be built around avoiding – like the plague - and yet the one experience that can liberate ego psychology into a profound state of natural presence. Everyone on the planet experiences psycho-physical-emotional restrictions and often on many levels such as personal, familial, collective, gender, national or geographic. Since all humans are directly or indirectly effected by the collective effect of Covid, we are all traumatized in one way or another, witnessing a range of adaptive behaviors from full on denial to deep states of fear and everything in between including common sense. And this is exactly what we do with our own secret wounds.
But imagine this. Imagine you are the ocean welcoming the wave of fear, the wave of denial, the wave of rejection or judgment, allowing these experiences to integrate back into the whole, unseparated from itself. The ocean welcoming unclaimed aspects back into its power and presence, unscathed, boundless, and free. The ocean is a well-loved metaphor for consciousness and presence, and it suits the purpose perfectly. This oceanic power of presence that we are is deepened in our collective knowing as contractions are welcomed and it is finally safe to just be.
When the time is right, we can use the practice of resting as natural presence to include these up until now, rejected aspects of self-energy. As this continues there is that deepening within as the power of pure presence, with no agenda or fury, apathy, or numbness. We can breathe as the ocean, for this is a journey of letting go of who we think we are to discover what we are. Then, we witness the absence of psychology and the presence of qualities that perfume the oceans presence in unique and beautiful ways.