Reverence

 

def: a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe; veneration.

 

From the Latin vereri "to observe with awe, revere, respect, fear;" Greek ouros "a guard, watchman," horan "to see;" Hittite werite- "to see;" Old English weard "a guarding, protection; watchman, sentry, keeper."

 

 In a recent yoga class, we were given the instruction to treat the breath and the body with reverence.  It made me aware of how rarely I feel this way towards my breath, my body, my self.  To stand in awe at my aliveness displaces the judging, grasping ego.  The ego part that clings to the belief that love for myself needs to be earned and comes from being good, succeeding according to the culture’s pre-ordained measures, getting the right people to pay a lot of attention.  The ego has no capacity for awe.  Awe comes from those moments of grace when we are stopped in our tracks at the amazing miracle of aliveness. 

 

When my daughter was first born, I would stare at her peep of a face, the tiny fingers, the translucent apricot slivers of her ears in wonder and awe.  It seemed as if she glowed from an inner source. I was mesmerized by her beauty and the overflow of love that I felt towards her.  What if we could see ourselves with that much tenderness, serve as the holy guard and protector of our bodies, minds, and souls?

 

Going through the day-to-day activities, I am hard pressed to feel awe.  My body, breath, and mind doing a million different things at once that I take for granted.  I forget that this alchemy of breath, tissue, bone, organs, skin, and blood is the cathedral of my soul, God’s indwelling.  The way I talk to myself sometimes you would never know that I am precious. 

 

Reverences comes from a deep recognition that our existence is amazing.  Afterall, we all come from an explosion of stars.  If that is not awe inspiring, I am not sure what is.  Our hearts started to beat long before we could breath and will continue to open and close for our whole lives.  And then will stop.  There will be a finite number of hugs we can give to each other, kind words, and prayers.  Only so many sunlight July afternoons by the river, night skiing through moonlit forests, inhalations, and exhalations. When I am aware of this preciousness of life, the moment is transformed from something not worthy of my full attention to something akin to the anticipation of a lover’s tender touch.