Naked in the Bardo

Imagine dying and being greeted by those that have loved you. And their job is to surround you as you strip out of your previous identity, your role, your skin, and, yes, your whole previous self. They lovingly hold you while you grieve through the surrendering and alight down into your original essence... before you begin to form your next re-incarnated You. The Buddhists call this in-between place the Bardo.

I have imagined that this Bardo experience can occur during our lifetime and not just after. You have friends that are in the Bardo now. Unsure, possibly depressed, certainly anxious. You have been there yourself or you will be. I have travelled there several times. One of my retired friends said to me, "Steve, I used to be a Doctor. Now, I'm the guy who walks the dog in my neighborhood."

It is a time of walking with uncertainty. And yet if we don't get too impatient, great clarity can come from this "fertile void". Below the anxiousness, down in the basement of our being exists an art room. There sits an artist that has been waiting for this opportunity. "Is it my turn yet?" asks some long forgotten part of myself. Is it my turn to give expression to that which I have hidden? Can I come out now? Dare I say, Yes? It is enough during this time in the Bardo to just take a breath. Before I too quickly adorn myself in the next costume, let me pause, taste the strawberry and be introduced to an unclothed me.