We’re going to shift a bit with this week’s mantra. This week, I offer you a story of my Burn and how this mantra came to me. In turn, I gift it to you and invite you to make it a part of your daily practice.
Mantras + Music
I Am Enough
Since this year’s Burn, I have been struggling with integrating the experiences had and the lessons learned in the Dust. The combination of heat, dust, dehydration, and overexposure to the sun align to form a spiritual alchemy of sorts. The lack of readily available showers and the creature comforts of the Default World thrust you into a profound awareness of what it is to Be: to be uncomfortable, to be dirty, to be alive, to Be. Without the distractions of the dull blue hum of the omnipresent screens and the Talking Heads we worship, we are forced to turn our attention inwards, and to the world around us. However, there is something different about this place – something that makes the time spent alone more savory, more delicious, more juicy. There is something about the messages strapped to the front of fur-laden bikes, hurriedly scribbled on carefully ripped cardboard, that makes you stop and breathe in every syllable like you were ingesting the words of Christ or the Dalai Lama or the Buddha.
“Be here now.”
Maybe it’s the fact that each and every one of these people was as insane as me: crazy enough to drive into the desert and subject themselves to a week of near-death levels of heat and exhaustion, that makes them seem like they were god incarnate. Their words are a deliverance from some realm outside our own. A cherry-red icicle pop splashing little drops of red onto the sandy canvas below becomes sweet salvation when the Sun is at its highest.
It happened sometime around mid-week. Without the absence of persistent programming to the contrary, it finally dawned on me. I had spent years in a relationship I was ill-equipped to deal with, projecting my own perceived inadequacies and insecurities on another human being who I ultimately revered as my “best-friend” but was terrified at the prospects of admitting. I realized that I had done this with many, many people throughout the years and failed to address it. When I did realize it, I beat myself up.
“Stupid. Dumb. Ignorant.”
But that all changed at the Burn.
It came in the smile of a stranger it is no surprise to those who know – who have felt the overwhelming presence and power of synchronicity – that it came exactly when I needed it.
They smiled at me and without saying another word said, “you are enough.”
Then turned and pivoted in their dusty black Doc Marten’s, hopped on their bike, and road off into the violent dust storm sneaking it’s way off the Esplanade and into the camps.
I had heard those words before.
Except this time I believed them.
“You are enough.”
I am enough.
And so, with that belief in mind, I offer this mantra to you:
I am enough.