The Road of Life is Sometimes Rocky
Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth that gives us power over life or another, or even the self, but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, how afraid we are of not knowing, and how astonished we are by the generous measure of loss that is conferred upon even the most average life. David Whyte (Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.)
The first words that I wrote early this Full Moon morning long before the Sun rose over the peaks were ‘deep thought’, ‘honesty’, ‘deeper truths’. I thought of The Agreement Beneath All Names and its call to “listen long enough for the deeper truth to surface.”
What are the ‘deeper truths’ of our time that we need to excavate? Or are these truths perhaps right in front of us inviting our willingness to see? How might we face that which invites our reckoning with vulnerable, open-hearted honesty and care? Are we willing? Am I?
Surely you have felt or sensed that ‘things are different now’. Perhaps you have felt an intensity or a sense of unease that is both familiar and, yet, distinct.
That has been my experience particularly in the past week or so as I have been immersed in the annual activity of preparation for evacuation in the event of wildfire. Such readiness is an important part of life in the wildland-urban interface zone where I live. Each year my readiness includes checking that my ‘go bag’, important papers, and emergency supplies are current and ready in the event I need to go and reviewing my checklist of ‘what to do when you leave’ and my community’s emergency evacuation plans and map of routes. Same this year. Except …
This year feels different, more intense, and I’m responding by being more thoughtful, more thorough because, yes, in the intensity of this time I feel more concerned, more vulnerable than in previous years. I’ve added additional steps for coordinating with friends and pre-arranging for lodging if that need arises. After a couple weeks of attention and action, I feel prepared, at least physically.
And from that place I can relax into preparing all of me. What is different? How am I different? Who/how do I need to BE if …?
And that is where honesty joins the party. I am not who I was when I last engaged in this annual ritual of preparation. None of us are. Our home planet, Mother Earth, is not. She is simultaneously shaking and rumbling, spewing, flooding, and burning to extremes. So too are we humans quaking in our boots as we grapple with the honest truth that we are here as a part of Life to unfold with it not to control it. To reckon with not knowing and in that reckoning make peace with our not knowing, personally and collectively.
Looking back at my approach this year, I acknowledge fear and wanting to know that which cannot be known as drivers. I ask myself to stand in trepidation at the doorway of acknowledging that I simply don’t know and how fearful and powerless I feel in that not knowing. And I recognize this doorway as an invitation to step thorough it into the unknown where my true power resides. And as I imagine taking that step, I relax a bit, imagining that all of me is prepared for whatever comes in the unfolding vulnerability of existence.
Could accepting that we don’t and can’t know be one of the deeper truths that needs to surface and be given its due, its time of reckoning to guide us forward in this, our own time of transformation?
Baby Pine Cone Dripping With LIFE!