Back to Basics

I have this growing sense that despite everything, all the complications and complexities that seem to riddle this human existence, life is, truthfully, simple. I found myself in a moment today feeling deeply sad, only to suddenly realize that it was because I felt left out - not part of something I expected and wanted to be part of. And for me, as an adult, feeling left out sucks as much as it did when I was 6. In that moment I realized that this simple fear or yearning has been part of much of the suffering I have had in my life and relationships with others. I don't know what to do with that yet, but there it is. A piece of a larger puzzle no doubt, but it's pretty basic stuff.

Resoundingly I am coming to realize that the 'answers' to life's unknowns reside in the simplest things. To be loved and love in return without reservation, to trust that things are as they are meant to be, and know that regardless of how much time it seems to take sometimes, all things pass on, and perhaps return to us in a different form. 

I am going to posit that when the shit hits the fan in life, we are not being called to 'figure things out' with another layer of complication. I can retell the same story a thousand times, or come up with a new one about what I or someone else did wrong, or wonder about past lives and chakras and which rock to place on my mantle in order to ensure the optimal Feng-Shui-ness. I have no doubt that all these things are worthwhile and have their gifts. But maybe I just need to learn to pause more often, and find the still points where the rush and grind of life is quieted. To understand that there is nothing unreasonable or overly idealistic about the things I want in life, but that I need to learn a few things I missed along the way. 

I need to learn how to choose (because I often let others or circumstance choose for me).

I need to learn how to (sometimes) walk away and (sometimes) stay put and wait, and to know the difference. 

And to be ok if I got it wrong.

I need to learn to stop trying to imagine all the things that can go wrong and all the things that can go right. Because something else is taking care of that, and it has a much better imagination than I do.

I went skydiving once, and after the chute opened instead of being buffeted by wind and noise I found myself engulfed in a windless silence. Last week I found the perfect surf wave and I experienced something similar, sitting weightless and loose in the moving, careening rush of river water. What I am looking for is that silence, the suspension of control and surrender to the forces that are beyond me. Seeking the answers or explanations or understanding of things past and present and future will not bring me closer to this.

Mystery

There are grand rewards for those who pick the high hard roads, but those rewards are hidden by years. Every choice is made in the uncaring blind, no guarantees from the world around you.

There is an art to this life.
And a tolerance for mystery is part of that artfulness. Acceptance of not knowing. I think we (I) try to understand everything as best I can, get all the details, ask for all the truths.
But the real truth is that there are myriad things happening at once, in the hidden acres below the topsoil. Things that I don't and can't see. They are unavailable to my comprehension, and made of vapour and shards of moving sunlight and dust.  Real truth is not within sight, and out of the grasp of words. I find this untenable, often, and try to force things into shape, and sense. Get clarity.

But clarity and certainty could well be the trap. The things I am sure of will continue to turn cloak.
I would be fooling myself to think that I understand or have any control over what comes next, what is becoming. In seeking that I am probably paying attention to all the wrong details, the wrong signs. The important things are hidden, quietly cloaked in mystery, flitting away at the slightest touch of the thinkers' mind and the graspers' hand.

To remain still in the midst of this mystery is the task, not transmuting the stillness into stories, annoyance, frustration or fear. But I struggle to live life in the uncaring blind.