It’s like close magic: we’re left wondering ‘How?’
Some would call it a miracle even – that as we empty ourselves we become more solid.
How can this be?
We sometimes say so-and-so is a ‘big personality’…‘You sure know when they’re in the room!’
But while it sounds like a compliment, it rarely is.
The phrase generally describes someone who’s rage or ambition, need for attention or strong opinions spill everywhere, filling the space within them and without.
Perhaps you know such people at work, at home, or – God forbid! – in the world of politics. Given the chance, they climb determinedly to the top; or anywhere they can be seen.
But these are not solid people, we’ll not assume that, for there is no inner space in them; and inner space determines our capacity for creative life.
You cannot be both full of your spilling self and solid.
If our space is filled by rage or ambition, by a need for attention or opinions posing as certainty, there is no capacity in us for fresh creation or newness.
We become like a newspaper that prints the same stories day after day – stale, claustrophobic, with no capacity for anything but the spouting of some distant yesterday.
As we breathe in space, and breathe out all else, we let go of our unexamined compulsions;and we breathe in present strength, strength for all things; and the creativity necessary for this particular moment.
In such breath; in such inhalation and exhalation, we become solid people, world ready, with capacity for living today.
It is strange that as we empty ourselves, we become solid.
Strange but true; the so-solid crew.
