To Count by Touching

I ran across the excerpt below on a hair salon blog of all things, and I found it so inspiring that I have to share it! It is from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. It is such a compliment to a lot of things that I've been pondering lately...

To Count by Touching

We need to count by touching,not by adding and subtracting.

When we count with our eyes, we stall the heart. For the eyes can see clearly what is broken without ever feeling the break, and the mind can calculate the loss without ever sewing up the wound. Without touching the life coming apart before us, we can race to rebuild before the wrecked dream ever hits the ground. While this makes us resilient and efficient as ants, it also keeps us from ever living in what we build.
Alas, what makes us precise and efficient can also begin a life of neurosis: not touching what we see, not feeling what we know. This is how the mind skips the heart’s step. How we forget that blood on the news is real, that the cry from the street is attached to something living.
I remember waking up after rib surgery to find a dear friend at the foot of my bed. I was elated to have arrived on the other side and called to her, but she was staring off. I knew in an instant that she was already mourning me, and so she missed me coming alive. She was already preparing for life without me, and so, the deeper closeness awaiting us was never felt or worn. We think we protect ourselves by taking inventory and moving on, but we only spin our web tighter.
Recently, another friend had a dream in which we were building a home with sturdy shelves for the things we loved. She tried to count the shelves, but couldn’t keep the numbers in her head. She had to go over and count the shelves by touching each one. Mysteriously, as she did this, the shelves began multiplying. Her touch made more shelves possible. 


Such a profound and simple lesson: to count with our hands brings us deeper than all counting. Then numbers give way to notes, and sums give way to song.

This is so beautiful to me. There is something to be said about feeling the pain that is in our lives, rather than trying to run away from it. Feeling it and staring it in the face, accepting our dark parts, realizing that there will always be pain in life, just as there will only be joy- this is how to set the bone before you heal, so you don't have a more complicated injury later.... I've been thinking a lot lately about my own walls that I've built over time for protection, and how I remember myself when I was younger of feeling more with my heart- of being more open to people, without thinking about their flaws.

Perhaps the way to get back to that place is to use our expression and creativity to feel deeply again- I think there is a lot of truth in the idea that working and feeling with our hands opens our hearts. So tonight, turn off your TV. Wait to do the laundry tomorrow. Start an art project, feel the warmness in your heart like you did when you were a kid, and smile.