Can You Be With Joy

• i know i said we were done with "THE INVITATION", but i left out "JOY". So, here is "JOY". i hope you enjoy. if so, please comment and share. don't forget to take to take care of you.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

Can I be with joy, dance with wildness and let the ecstasy of the moment fill me to the tips of my fingers and toes without cautioning myself or others? Yes, I can and I have. I have experienced joy so amazing I could not sit still; joy so moving that I reveled in it and then had to share it. On my wedding day I was joyful. I was emotionally full. I could not eat and I could not sit still. I talked to everyone, smiled constantly, danced every chance I could and laughed a lot. That day was so joyful for me I could not contain my feelings. And after the day was done, I wanted to do it all over again so that I could experience that feeling all over again...

I have also felt joy when in the throes of saying thank you. A quiet joy that has lifted my heart and made my soul and my situation feel lighter. A joy that has made the aches that I experienced almost nonexistent. A joy so freeing that tears of release cleansed me.

I have felt joy when taking the time to think of others and not myself. I can remember working in a soup kitchen, helping a victim of abuse, getting charges dropped against an immigrant who was wrongfully accused of a crime. The thank you from the people I helped was so special I have never forgotten it. I guess, even then I was mindful of the moment. I can still remember how those encounters left me feeling - joyful and blessed.

And I have danced and laughed and played with total abandon many times. While most of those moments have come when I was with my daughter, I believe they were the times when I was most willing to allow the moment to seize me. Those times when I was most willing to give in to impulse, when it was almost impossible not to give in to the feeling of being a living, vibrant being. But I don’t think you can plan to act with total abandon. I think it happens when you are so caught up in the moment, so mindful of the moment that you allow it to, at least in a sense, consume you such that the only way to proceed any further is to release the feelings through acts of total abandonment.

So, I have cavorted through sandy beaches, cried with abandon, basked luxuriantly in the sun, laughed until I cried, embarrassed myself in the streets with foolishness and danced in the rain. I have sung out loud to no one and shouted my joy to whosoever was present to hear. I have let the ecstasy of the moment fill me to the tips of my fingers and toes. And, I am open, eager and ready to do so again. I do believe there is joy that lasts. You just must be open to the moment.

This week, let joy catch you unawares and give in to it. This week, live with abandon, seize the moment, rejoice, find your ecstasy, laugh, love - in essence, be the fully alive, vibrant being you were created to be. Than look back and say thank you.  

   

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.”

Mary Anne Radmacher