sannyasin

Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. (Hosea 7:8-9)

Woe is me! for I am undone. (Isaiah 6:5)

Each of us is a peculiar, a unique genetic structure, a unique soul. When born into this realm called Earth, we are “strangers in a strange land.” We live amongst strangers and we learn their ways. We become acculturated.

We come here with a sense of mission and purpose. We come here to open in our own peculiarity, to blossom as the uniqueness that we are. To do so, we “mix ourselves among the people.” We conform. Then we rebel against our conformity, perhaps not realizing that anticonformity is simply playing the shadow version of the same old game.

We become “a cake not turned” with all its discomfort and pain – burnt on one side and raw on the other. The “world is too much with us.” We feel burnt out and we are raw with unfulfilled expectations. We feel unopened to our fullness, have not fully embodied our mission, our felt sense of purpose. Burnt and raw.

Time has gone by quickly. Now we are elders, geezers, the older ones. When we look back at our lives, as we are especially prone to do at this age, we may feel that we have allowed strangers to devour our lives. Perhaps we have even insisted that they do so.

Thank goodness for this geezer time of knowing. For we are not yet done. With every remaining breath given, we “renew a right spirit within us.” It is the strange land’s turn to deal with us now.  We allow the unique genetic structure that we are, the unique soul that we are, to blossom, to bloom, to express with loving fierceness who we are. This is our chance. This is our opportunity.

This is the time to unmix ourselves from among the people, to reclaim our strength, our vision, to open with the strong sense of individuality we have so rightly earned.