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A world that is aching requires more of us to be available as a resource for its healing processes. It needs us to show up fully and engage responsibly with the collective task at hand: supporting the intricate balance of environmental and relational ecosystems that can support the forces of life on our planet. We can only do so by moving beyond a narrow sense of self and into the greater spheres of interconnectedness and oneness. By opening up to an inner and outer wholeness.

The task of cultivating presence is even greater in a world that entices us in constant disruptions and invites us to disconnect in a myriad of ways. A world that is intent on moving us at great distance from our inner worlds. We are persistently removed from our deep despair, alienation and grief as well as our boundless creative and regenerative potencies. Shielded but weakened, we lead fragmented lives that limit our sense of self and presence.

Presence emerges from the act and art of deep inner listening. It rests on our capacity to remain open and available to all that exists within ourselves. On our capacity to re-member our embodied wisdom. When moving inwards we are called to meet our light and darkness in equal trust and measure, with a heart that includes all and touches everything with compassion. Free of judgement and full of curious attention we can move in closer to whatever emerges, cultivating greater intimacy with all that we are. The greater the contact we have with life within ourselves, the wider the space we can relate to others from. Gradually we become more available to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us.

Our capacity to be present is equal to our capacity to be vulnerable. When we commit to the forces of presence we have to show up in our fullness, allowing ourselves to be seen, witnessed and reflected back through the mirrors of intimacy. We enter the relational field of life that supports awareness and growth. Our sense of Self emerges through the intricate web of interconnectedness. When showing up in our fullness we stop hiding behind the longings of who we wish to be and enter the container of who we truly are. We arrive to our responsibility for how we exist in our inner and outer world and to the source of aligned action. This level of awareness is enlivening; to cultivate greater presence is to be brought back to life more fully.

Practices that quieten the mind, teach us how to inhabit our embodied selves and hone our attention can support us in cultivating greater presence. They teach us how to engage with the attentive stillness that true presence requires. They move us into the deeper layers of our experience of Self and the world, tracking our inner dance with life. But like the movements of nature whose imprints we carry in all that we are, our emotions and states have their own cycles and rhythms of opening and closing, constricting and releasing. Our sense of presence will ebb and flow and like everything else in life it will exist in constant flux. Under the nourishing gaze of attention, we can attend to every stage of our inner journey. Honouring each opening and closing supports their true essence and their service to the forces of change and transformation.

Presence supports intimacy and in return intimacy supports presence. Together they create the freedom to reach and be reached, to touch and be touched, to move and be moved. Throughout our lifetime we have mastered endless disappearing acts that arise from a deep-seated fear of being hurt, harmed, disappointed, let down and abandoned. As adults we have to re-learn trusting our hearts with others. We have to re-learn trusting contact with ourselves. Deep inner work requires presence and intimacy with whatever guides us internally or externally. By surrendering to the deeper movements of our relating self, we remain open to what needs to emerge. This is a potent medicine for the poisons of our world today. In presence we can include it all, in absence all is lost.