My corner of intimacy with Reality is clearest through the medium of soccer. Through this sport that my body has familiarized and developed itself through for most of my life, I have contact with a microcosm of the whole human experience.
Authentic skillfulness in any activity – whether it be a sport, an art, a hobby – is usually a place where one experience active and granular intimacy with reality.
In my activity of soccer, I feel the difference between playing as myself with a narrative to prove of dispel, vs. playing as a selfless node in a collective, unified system – allowing intuition to connect me to the larger rhythm and lead me to where I am of service to the whole.
I see how getting in my head creates a futile feedback loop of processing only negative data, leading to a disconnect from the moment and thus, resulting in worse play and bolstering of the negative feedback loops.
I feel the difference between going through the motions and being present in the minor articulations of my ankles, the activating vitality of being dynamic on my toes and buoyant in my body, the sharp focus of waiting for the exact right angle in space-time to make a play.
there is a vitality, whether it be when one’s singing, or speaking or dancing or playing or creating, that is stoked when we feel our sensitive bodies brushing up against the tools and shapes of our preferred activity – a vitality that is associated with greatness in ones craft … a fullness from which beauty and skillfullness overflows in ornate flourishes and delicate articulations. This is the difference between hitting the note while singing and flourishing it with am almost imperceptibly subtle vibrato and riff.
Maybe the spiritual game isn’t always about transcending the self for its own sake, but to then be able to meet the present moment without our selves in the way, in a way that is awake, alive, articulated, and vital. Perhaps it doesn’t matter what medium it is, as long as it inspires lucid and inspired excitement, nor what corner of the universe it puts you in contact with.
You meeting reality in that quiver of a moment – when your fingers pluck the strings, you mind catches the right words, or the time to pass the ball suddenly ripens – is maybe when we’re closest to embodied truth.
Active, awake and engaged intimacy with reality.