Beneath the different shapes it may take, awakening is a fundamental pivot in a human being’s way of showing up and moving through life. At the most basic level, it is a shift out of being run by habitual patterns and core contractions, and into an increasing capacity to meet reality from a place of presence, openness and intimacy. To show up for the immediacy of what is, just as it is. Again and again and again.

The precise phenomenology of that shift can vary widely depending on the particular threads and experiences that have been activated:

• Tunneling into the emptiness thread, one might primarily encounter it as a seeing through and falling away of the illusion of a solid, inherently existing self and reality. A grokking of the dreamlike, diaphanous nature of all appearances or the luminous aware space in which they arise.
• Following the thread of the heart, it might be more of a melting into an all-pervading field of unconditional love, an embodied knowing of the intrinsic goodness and interconnectedness of all things. A felt sense of reality as an unbroken wholeness appearing in infinite guises.
• With an emphasis on the energetic dimension, awakening might be characterized by an unraveling of subtle contractions and blocks in the body, unleashing tremendous flows of life force and sensation. An electrifying, full-spectrum vibrancy and dynamism imbuing even the most ordinary moments.
• And diving into the depths of the unconscious, one might encounter a profound reclaiming and metabolization of the abandoned, denied, and undigested aspects of personal and collective history. A shedding of the layers of forgetting to reconnect with the timeless terrain of the soul.

For some, what predominates is one single, highly distilled thread of revelation. For others, multiple dimensions co-arise and weave together in endlessly unique ways. There is a beauty and rightness to each configuration.

But across all of these variations, the common core is a fundamental re-orientation from absence to presence, from closure to openness, from resistance to what is to courageous alignment and attunement. A remembrance of our deepest nature and an activation of our capacity to embody that in all that we are and all that we do.

Often, this pivot is initially catalyzed by a powerful glimpse of what is possible, a direct taste of our essential freedom. But the real work is what comes after — the gradual embodiment and expression of that recognition in all areas of life. A journey of ongoing refinement, clarification, and discovery that is never finished.

At a certain point in that journey, we may even come to see that the very notion of “awakening” as some special state or attainment is itself just another construct, another dream. Shedding another layer of illusion, reality is allowed to be exactly as it is, with no need for the mind to frame it in any particular way. While we might still reach for different threads and maps as helpful tools at times, there is an increasing freedom to hold it all lightly, to not claim any final conclusions.