Thanks Alessa that was nice to hear.

Hi Anita – thanks for the invitation to answer or not, to be candid its a question I often ponder and suspect its something that can only be answered-experienced for ourselves, a answer that likely can’t be defined by words.

Your question “Without any heavy bags, not even an ounce of a heavy bag, who would you be now Peter?” arrived as I was reflecting on an experience I had over the weekend.

I was talking with someone who was caught up in their stories, tangled in frustration because their love/words were getting distorted and coming out and received in ways they didn’t intend. But as I sat there and really, truly listened, something shifted. The words they were using became ‘transparent’. For a moment beneath the noise of their defense and baggage, I “saw” them. I saw how much love they held, how deeply they wanted to express it, and just how beautiful they were, if they could only ‘know’ it. My heart broke… open.

And that’s when it happened to me, too.

When their words became transparent to me, my own luggage slipped to the floor. I didn’t vanish; instead, my own rigid boundaries dissolved… allowing grace to shine through…

“When we drop the luggage of our defensive words, we finally arrive “Home.” We step into that collective “now” beating in our chests, where we can engage in the simplest things with what we finally recognize as love.”

Without any heavy bags, not even an ounce of a heavy bag, who would you be now, Peter? … I would Be. Love, Presence

Anita, that is the exact same question I found myself asking: *What if I could see that in people, more often…?*

It has also led me to a second question as I enter the fourth quarter of life. What if I’ve been asking the wrong things all along? For so long, the questions have been: *What will I do?* and *How will I do it?*

Perhaps the truer question is simply: **How do I wish to Be?**

I wonder if we anchor ourselves in that state of *Being* first, in that dropped-luggage presence, the *what* and the *how* will resolve themselves naturally.

Todays Richard Wagamese Meditation seems appropriate

Me: Tell me about love.
Old Woman: It is our only real choice. The only thing that we can truly give.
Me: How do we do that?
Old Woman: Choose it above all else. Love is you leading me back to the highest possible version of myself. It’s me leading you back to who you were created to be. It is the most important choice we can make for each other.
Me: Those closest to us, you mean.
Old Woman: No everyone. Everything. Widening your circle at every opportunity.
Me: Sounds hard.
Old Woman: So is being born. But we all do it.