By Analyn Revilla

Knowledge. Word play of know and ledge. Knowing is being on the ledge to go beyond the limit. It is the edge. I have this strong fascination of Phillippe Petit’s high wire act of 1974 when he honored the calling to walk on the wire tied between the Twin Towers of NYC. What was and is the inherent capacity in him that sleeps dormant in many of us? The artist within is awaiting for the birth of creativity, “The Birth of Cool” a la Miles Davis. We’re all capable of doing something capricious and daring, to rise to our most audacious potential. What knowledge within us lies dormant? What’s keeping me asleep?

The clock on the bottom right corner of my laptop reads 4:34 AM. The page is framed by the edges of the screen. The Operating System is Windows. Windows have frames. Windows are portals to the other side. The scariest thing is going to the other side and not having a return to the familiar frame of mind: seeing someone we love differently, or an enemy as a friend, or home some place we can’t go back to anymore.

For Phillippe, the Twin Towers were probably no longer the Goliaths towering awesomely into the clouds. After he was forced by the men in blue to get off that wire, I bet he was still walking in air when he was back on his feet on ground zero. On a clear night from his backyard, Neil Armstrong probably looked at the moon very differently after he had walked on its surface in 1969. He said “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

When an employee tenders a letter of resignation to her boss, especially when the boss never thought the employee was capable of quitting, there is that humungous leap and change of perception on both sides of the table. We both let go of that boss-employee relationship. Though the umbilical cord of security of a regular paycheck, benefits and routine was severed, I found a lightness in my being. My breath is easy. My mind is expanded. I feel free.

I’ve been struggling this week to write a blog. Mostly because my life was consumed by the responsibility of passing down what I know and what I do to the successor of my old job. Also, I’m experiencing a rainbow of emotions born from a spectrum of thoughts – from the ultra-violet aura of spirituality (the 7th chakra) to the infra red glow of survival instincts (the 1st chakra). I walk the duality of being human. In between the 1st and 7th chakras is the 4th chakra which is the heart center. What my heart told me was it was time to move forward to the next phase of my life journey.

My boss was delighted that the transition has been one of the easiest she’s known. “Really?” I said. I know of a situations when someone packed up their things on a Friday evening and sent an email of quitting then left their pass key behind and walked away for good. I’ve walked in the shoes of someone who had to draw out the knowledge and practice from someone leaving the company and the person was reticent to convey what they know, because of a grudge. There was also the time when another person exposed their dissolution and bitterness in their exit interview. I sense that the HR person did not check the box “Rehire”.

Yes, “Really”. There is a range of going to the edge when leaving behind a job. I am conscientious to do a good job of teaching and training someone what I know because inherently, I’m a teacher. I don’t do it because it’s polite and gracious, but it’s who I am. I couldn’t leave anyone behind in a lurch or without a rope no matter how well or poorly the relations had been. In the end its better to err on the generous side than on the stingy side, because the path I choose would be what I am at the moment and that precipitates what I will be. My state of mind now is what my state of being will be.

My old job is like my old habit that I will stop wearing, like a nun leaving behind the habit of her convent or even an ex-convict, reformed, having done time. There is a beautiful quote from an interview I heard on the radio. A soprano singer described the suffering of a character as a cleansing of the soul.

That is an edge for me. The edge of being aware of who I am now. Mindfulness of the states of consciousness of my being. Projecting my future by my thoughts now. I’m not a high wire artist, though I am longing to be aloft and experiencing the high. The closest I’ve been to that state was hiking to the peak of a mountain. It’s so much work getting there and the body produces endorphins that gives that “high” feeling. Though the descent from the top can be tougher than the ascent, it’s part of what could be a pernicious journey. Any trip worthy of growth and evolution has the price of danger and loss of the original self. In Joseph Campbell’s analysis of the hero’s call to adventure the possibilities are: Sacred Marriage, Atonement with the Father, Apotheosis, Elixir Theft. For me it is Apotheosis.

I am that which all other beings are.

(from “A Joseph Campbell Companion”.)