I’ve been called a revolutionary, radical to the core. My son used to cringe and say I was an old hippie and coming from him, it wasn’t meant as a compliment. I just smiled and said an inward ‘thank you’ and went about whatever it was I was doing that elicited such praise.

The cringe was rarely brought about by what most would expect: heading to a protest, going braless, shouting at the establishment. It was that unexpected moment of joy, joy for no reason at all, my Freudian slip from practical mom into Pollyanna mentality, a deep caring that made no sense to logical minds … leftovers from the days when I wore torn jeans and a faded poncho, when I rebelliously placed a flower behind my ear and carried a guitar on my back.

It’s easy to forget the radical side of life in these times of chaos, to forget to stop and gaze in awe at the little bee snuggled in the embrace of a flower (I saw a sweet little one just yesterday); to skip right past an opportunity to sit on the grass and string daisies into a chain; to be too busy to thrill to the taste of an ice-cold bright kombucha; to not find the amazing grace in stopping to talk with the homeless man on the corner, to miss his quick grasp of the water and a granola bar, to barrel past his look of joy in being seen, his gentle astonishment as you bow in namaste … to him.

None of those may sound radical, but they are. They are the most radical things we can do right now.

Hate is not radical. It is not revolutionary. It is predictable. It is the automatic knee-jerk reaction to anger and hatred, to the hurt we feel, the wounds that ache.

It is easy to forget, to overlook the power of gratitude, to miss the joy of living in appreciation of this breath, just this breath without need of another. It is robotic for most of us to cling tightly to certainty and ignore the fact that there are no guarantees in life, not one, not even the next breath.

That’s why it is so important to stop, to breathe, to clear out the cobwebs, to open our hearts, to notice when we are running on autopilot, to move beyond fear to the revolutionary within, the natural unaffected unprogrammed beingness we are.

For it is sheer anarchy to love openly, to meet another’s eyes, to feel deeply into another’s wounded heart. It is a radical act to live in this woefully hard world and remain fully human, to stand up when others are falling down, to stoke the fires of humanity when they are threatening to die out. It is utter mutiny to refuse to hate in a world filled with hate, to love regardless of whether we are loved back, to live fully, breathe deeply, to be fully alive right up to the moment of our last breath, to magnificently live not just take up space.

In a world that thrives on separation, recognizing that we are not two, that there is not two is revolutionary. It changes everything about how we view life and how the world interacts with us. To love, to love all life, in a world that is trying to beat kindness out of us, that is trying to separate us into sides, is the antidote, the only one that doesn’t feed the conflict machine.

Stop. Smile. Dance. Live. Laugh. Be in awe. Fill with gratitude. See the grace. Love. Breathe. Be.

That’s it.

Amaya Gayle is the author of 6 books, the latest Actuality; infinity at play, published by New Saram Press. https://amzn.to/3Rd4CTY

Image in body of article: Pierre Escobas 2020

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