Open Hands—Opens Heart

Imagine closing your eyes, your arms outstretched with the palms of your hands open and facing the sky. In the practice of yoga this is considered receiving mode. Then imagine a gift being gently placed in the cradle of your hands. It doesn't matter the nature of this gift, its size, shape or monetary value, what matters is the way it is being received. Does it feel heavy, like a burden? In the moment of receiving are there companion thoughts? What does this mean? What does he/she want from me? How will I reciprocate?

Or...are you able, as I am learning, with open hands to allow in the gift from another—of another? For nothing more and everything of—the offering itself? To be thought-less in the moment of the thought-full exchange? Can you/I allow the gift to dive below the surface of the physical, swim the channel of extended arms toward an open heart—an opening heart?

Last month I spent 30 days gifting—paying it forward. My reflection toward the end of this practice concluded with just how easy it was to gift for the pure pleasure of giving—much in anonymity and letting go of any sort of self patting on the back. Heading into this month, there was this little voice speaking from the archives of "things I once heard," that receiving was also a gift back to the giver. With that in mind, I set out in April (also happened to be my birthday month) to experience 30 Days of Receiving.

Day 24: I can't begin to tell you how liberating this has been. To be free of thought and be in pure acceptance of bountiful gifts. From gestures of smiles, kisses, well-wishes, and compliments to the traditionally wrapped varieties. Gifts freed from the sea and the garden to notes filled with gratitude for me just being me, and one PBJ sandwich lovingly wrapped, bagged and scribed with my name—LORI, a heart shape dotting the i. Accepting the mirror of glory and greatness in being human. Miracles delivered from God. The month is not over and my heart runneth over.

A visual now formulating in my minds-eye as I write today, two people in profile facing one another with arms stretched forward and in the exchange of "the gift," the symbol for infinity appeared. The figure eight flowing from heart to hands, hands to heart, heart to hands, hands to heart. A symbiotic event, the definition between giver and receiver dissolving. The path of infinite possibility illuminated—from open hands to open hearts.