Hubris

This is an admission of guilt. Not that I am doing too badly at this art of being human, but there is always something to learn.

I am gathering by now that one of my most slippery life lessons is to be humble. In relation to others I have not always been as light handed as I could be - I can't know their pain, their joy, what drives them and what does not (or perhaps not unless it is offered and I am listening without ego). I am not responsible for anyone else's choices and yet I continue to hold myself accountable for things out of my control or influence; which in itself is a pernicious kind of hubris. I sometimes even have the audacity to think I know what is going on for other people, to try to assuage or predict it, but really I don't and can't. The best thing I can do for them and myself is to be self responsible and afford them the respect and space to do the same. And not be so quick to judge if the way they do that doesn't fit with my current ideal - to avoid objectifying, to give the benefit of the doubt. Let them unfold in just the way they are unfolding.

Sometimes I push without knowing the surfaces upon which I am applying this wanton pressure. Maybe this is alright as it is a way I have of seeing in the dark, of expressing myself in a sometimes unresponsive void. Like sonar, it is how I locate myself in dark places. And if nothing else, perhaps the purpose of it all is to illuminate my blind spots, through the reverberation of this still small voice against these fathomless walls.

Maybe this is what matters, the rest be damned as I blunder my way through this. I am not sure. Of course I could be continuously getting everything wrong. A very real possibility.

I have struggled with patience, even though my deeper intuition has told me that more time is needed, I have tried to press my palm into this unfeeling mystery that surrounds and engulfs. Begging it to give way, to access the light so desperate to burst through the cracks that I have no power to create. I have no influence here, at least none that I can perceive. At times I feel I have done poorly at allowing things to emerge, although I also know I have done my most imperfect best.

I have needed more time to absorb and contain and become all the things that have arrived in my life.
To transmute them into beauty if they did not arrive looking all that beautiful.  Especially if they were painful or difficult. Because these pieces are verdant, laden with things that have the  capacity to transform, enlighten. And to fully receive the unmistakable gifts that I have been unable to see, laid at my feet like rose petals, offerings.

Even if the things I say or feel are heartfelt, it does not mean they are true for anyone else. If they are that is a great gift, but it is not to be expected or assumed. My words are only shots in the dark, a crude method of echolocation.

I have, and will continue to do the best I can, and keep my spirit journeying through this human experience. I am allowed to come back and apologize, or rethink, or see the truth unfold in some new and completely unexpected way. Because that is the nature of things that emerge naturally, blossoming slowly but arriving suddenly, leaving us breathless and cracked wide open.