Sitting in the Dark
It is spring in the mid-west and if there's one thing you can be certain to expect, it's a severe thunderstorm. I remember as a child, watching gray clouds and striking lightening move in, followed by bellowing thunder...I found it exhilarating. I fancied myself in my very own Wizard of Oz, moving treacherously through the darkness and threat, into the safety of the calm after the storm. The technicolor. The rainbows. It was my childhood fantasy, after all, Dorothy always did want to get out of Kansas.
Last night an emergency alert was issued around 6 pm. The sky was darkening, and I was sitting comfortably in the living room with my art supplies, my computer and my dog. My parents were out to bible study for the evening, being programmed with more "truth"...sorry, "Truth".
But I digress. Last night's storm was ramping up, the dark was rolling in and my dog was becoming more and more frightened with each flash of lightening. The wind was eerily still when the alert came in on my phone. Soon after the power went out. It was still daylight, so I gathered my things and took them down to the lower level, to the room where I stay when I am here with my dogs. I grabbed the bug-out bag that I had packed prior to the eclipse (just in case the New Madrid fault decided to go haywire that day) and I was happy that I packed it. The flashlight I included came in very handy as the storm was on top of us and the rain was beating down and I went to sit in the interior bathroom with my book, my phone and my dog, just in case the roof got blown off the top of the house above me.
But it didn't. The storm passed and the sun came out again, beautifully, making some of little Dorothy's rainbow appear in the eastern skies. Not a full rainbow, but the beginnings of a double one in the north and a nice solid leg in the south. The power was still not on and when I took my dog out to potty, she was still afraid and having nothing to do with being outside as the dark and lightening still loomed in the distant south and west. It was like she could "feel" the energy coming from those storms. They were absolutely too far away to cause her any harm, and yet she was afraid.
We went inside and Bella was immediately in her bed, her safe spot, happily settled down for the evening. Throughout the storm, I had also been on the phone, discussing the fate of my goats. The plan has been made to pay someone to load them up and take them all to the stockyards sometime this Saturday. I am a veritable wreck over all of this and I'm not sure why. Logically, it doesn't make that much sense. But this distressing feeling is not coming from my mind, it is coming from my being.
After a difficult conversation and an abrupt end to the call, I welcomed the complete stillness, the silence and the dark. I looked upon this as the perfect opportunity to immerse myself into meditation and maybe, perchance find some answers to this conundrum that I am caught up in. What I realize, what becomes very clear to me...this is not just about the goats. Not even close.
And daylight has come again, thankfully. The sun is shining, the power is restored, but I am not sure I have any more clarity than I did last night in the dark, except to say that this is just another one of those things that has to be gone through. I can't bypass it. I can't dodge it. I can't run away. I have to face it and learn from it and move through it, hopefully as gracefully as possible. Definitely against my ease...at this moment anyway.
And with the daylight, and with Friday, brings another email from my not-friend and trusted advisor, Josephine. With today comes her weekly message and serendipitously enough, a few words of support for me. So here I go again, unapologetically cutting and pasting her words of advice, hoping that maybe they could be helpful for you too, if in fact you are facing any of your own challenges. If you are having periods of darkness surrounding you too. You are not alone. I am not alone. We are not alone.
The Weekly Seeker #26 How comfortable are you with uncertainty… … when you don’t know how something is going to turn out? When you have to wait to find out the outcome of something in your life? Or when you set out on an unknown path, without being able to see where it’s going to lead you? Many of us have a limited tolerance for uncertainty. We might experience uncertainty as a threat, as something we need to fix or avoid at all costs. For me, uncertainty and being in a state of not knowing have often felt deeply uncomfortable (along with some other anxiety patterns I’ve experienced in this lifetime). We’re all on a continuum of how much uncertainty we can tolerate and be ok with before we start experiencing inner tension, discomfort, and stress. (Along with a strong need to resolve the uncertainty.) If you’re like me, you might have an inner part of you who we might call the “reassurance-seeker.” This is the part of us that doesn’t know how to sit with uncertainty, that wants to know everything in advance, that might over-prepare for things and/or seek reassurance or validation from others. These are all safety-seeking behaviors, which we use to try to escape the discomfort of having to face uncertainty. A key point I want to make here: you’re not bad, wrong, or weak for seeking reassurance or being uncomfortable with uncertainty. The fear of the unknown is a primal human fear, hard-wired into all of us at a physiological level. But – uncertainty is a fundamental, essential, unavoidable aspect of human life. Trying to escape, avoid, or control uncertainty (or fill it in with stories we make up in our heads about how things might, or should, or could turn out) is futile. So, what if – instead of thinking about uncertainty as a problem… as something you have to banish or overcome – you could think of uncertainty as one of your greatest teachers in this lifetime? What if it’s your spiritual task to master how to be ok and feel more comfortable with uncertainty? What if this is one of the most purposeful, meaningful, challenging things you’re here to do? (Perhaps even a lesson you’re carrying over from a previous lifetime?) True freedom means being able to stand steady and remain at peace – or at least remain relatively calm – even if something unexpected happens. Or even if you have no idea what’s going to happen. Even if you don’t have the answer to something yet. You can consciously choose to USE moments of uncertainty to practice how to be more comfortable with not knowing, and how to remain calm even in the face of the great unknowns in your life. Because, at the end of the day, human life is impermanent, and change – as they say – is the only constant. With love, Josephine |
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