It would be wonderful if we noticed a wound, listened to the harm around that wound, tended, held and loved the wound, and then never had to deal with it again. But in my experience, it doesn’t work that way. Perhaps if we were machines this would be possible. But instead we are indescribably complex, our life a cobweb within a cobweb, stretching out farther than one can perceive in all directions. Who can even know how a decision which was made by one of my ancestors a thousand years ago is affecting me now today?
Surely, this is one of the most beautiful things about being human. I am not an isolated creature. I am somehow tied to every other person in the universe, past and soon to be future. Surely, this is also one of the most painful things about being human. I carry remnants in my body of the affects of a thousand movements, acted out by more than a million people. Perhaps the more that I try to understand, the more nuanced it becomes.
Naturally, that’s not going to stop me from trying to understand. Perhaps this is just another example of my complexity — my incessant attempts to understand the mystery that can never be understood. Probably my life would be easier if I could just let myself tumble into a deep-fall of trust.
I am held.
I am held.
I am held.
This, I believe, would be the chant ringing in my ears as I fell into the bottomless abyss of the Great Mystery.
Today we ate tiny sandwiches of pita crackers, salami, and Swiss cheese. It was during this snack that my youngest son informed us that humans have two hearts. Curious about his ideology, I asked where these said hearts find their home. He responded that one is in our chest and the other is “up there,” pointing heaven-ward. Immediately, I received a picture in my mind of my human heart here, getting broken, battered and bruised, sometimes torn and bleeding. And then my “other” heart kept safe in the bosom of the Great Heart. Not just safe, but part of it.
Maybe my son is a mystic.
I suppose what I’m trying to ramble my way into saying is simply that if we, as humans, intend to be open to joy and delight, we better also be open to embracing complexity. Perhaps it’s not the mystery of life that overwhelms us so much as our continual work to make sense of it all. What if life isn’t here to be figured out? What if it’s here to be lived.
But how do we settle into living present with all that is continuously vying, sometimes screaming, for our attention — a crying child, a sink full of dishes, a broken relationship, a dream waiting to be born. Always a dozen more things on our to-do list, and that doesn’t even include all the things that could be on there. We can become programmed to live in a state of high arousal.
What if we could embrace complexity without having to figure it out? What would it feel like to bring my questions to the table and serve them tea instead of dissecting them? How would it rest in my body to bring what is true and sit with it in silence for longer than seems comfortable?
I have a nifty little habit of thinking about my feelings rather than feeling them. I don’t want to be with what is. I want to figure it out. It’s much less scary to stay in my mind rather than settle down into my bones. But maybe my bones understand what to do with complexity. Maybe in listening to them, I will finally learn how to live.
Fawne 💚 Beautiful and difficult. Truthful. Miss you!