Inquiring Deeply
I woke up this morning feeling tender and teary. This state of being is becoming quite familiar to me over the past few months as I, along with just about everybody else, am finding my way through navigating the personal and global changes and uncertainties of today’s (and the future) world. The sensations do not feel tight or contracted; they are just very, very open and … well, tender.
Clearly, we are living in a time of transformation. Some call it an initiation – an insistent invitation and colossal opportunity to cultivate a new way of being. Clearly, the old way has not worked out well for millions of human and more-than-human beings, nor for the home that we all share, Earth. In fact, the old way has been the source of human-inflicted harm and death for thousands of years. I have a sense that we can do better than that … much better.
Starting a little over 2 years ago, we have been living in circumstances which are inviting us to slow down and let go of assumptions, taking two giant steps into a field of change and discovery.
As we are frantically searching for answers and solutions for current personal and global crises, I wonder if we missed an important step …
What if the answers are not in the answers but are in the questions?
What if the questions themselves contain the guidance from a deeper part of ourselves that is wanting to be heard?
We could even start with these questions as openings to a different approach, a different way in – one that opens a door to curiosity, wondering,, and not assuming that we know …
What if the answers are in the questions that we are asking?
What I'm contemplating and acting from these days is a focus not-so-much on what-I-am-doing or what-will-work-to-change-other-beings-to-fit-how-I-think-they-should-be, but to focus on how am I being in relationship with what is, with what is happening.
I am asking myself:
What is the perspective or lens that I'm looking through?
What assumptions am I making about myself ... and about other beings?
How does my way of being align with the expansion of consciousness (according to Ken Wilbur), expansion of heart (according to wisdom traditions) and expansion of Universe (according to physicists) ... to increasing complexity and connection.
What if we know that we don't know what the bigger picture looks like?
What if, instead of focusing on knowing what we can't know, we focus on what is in alignment for what-we'd-like -to-see and lived that?
What if I could become Earth in human form – embodying resilience, containment, self-regulation, multi-valent resources, and inspiration?
According to quantum physics, it's all about relationship ... How we do what we do matters.
So, I find myself listening ...
I listen to those who have survived displacement, collapse of culture, plague and genocide -- Indigenous people, particularly of the lands now-known as the Americas;
I listen to the trees, the mountains, and the mycelium who have not only survived 5 extinctions, but have found ways of evolving beyond the collapses;
I listen to the stars, the galaxies and the elements of Universe who have found -- completely without a prescribed plan -- a way to perpetuate and engage infinite potential to create Life ... and rain ... and Northern Lights ... and possums ... (at least) 2 trillion galaxies ... and tango.
I listen to the poem that Amanda Gorman offered to the UN General Assembly a couple weeks ago: “An Ode We Owe.” To my mind, Ms. Gorman is not so much telling us what to do or what is possible. Rather, she is a clarion -- calling us to a larger vision than what our culture has been living, and to do what we can individually and collectively to catalyze and cultivate, to paraphrase Charles Eisenstein, a new and ancient way-of-being as part of this world (and Universe).
So, I often wake-up feeling tender and teary. As I continue to live into deep inquiry and rise to meet each new day of change, uncertainty and transformation, I contemplate the final 2 lines from one of my favorite poems, "It Happens All the Time in Heaven," by Hafiz:
How can I be more loving?
How can I be more kind?
As we, in the Northern Hemisphere, cross the threshold into winter and, as we throughout the world, continue to experience the swirl of change and uncertainty, we are likely to sense a call for deep contemplation and reflection. This month in The Studio, the door of the Flourish and Bloom Collective opens with an invitation to join this ongoing group of connection, support, and inspiration. Later in the month, there is the opportunity to come together in-person for Mindful Walking and Meditation as we enter the holiday season. Throughout the month and always, we sense and live in ongoing gratitude for this community of beings who are dedicated to cultivating the qualities of “Being Aware and Being Kind” in themselves and in the world.
Marianne
