We are currently facing some of the most challenging and chaotic times that many of us have lived through. Many of us knew something was coming, although not knowing what. We, the human race, could not have continued in the direction we were without immense consequences. At some point something was always going to come to shake the foundations on which we live, whether it was man made or by mother nature. I feel our current situation is caused by both, the virus and the response to it. For me the response is far more concerning than the virus itself.
I am aware, when I look at facebook or the news that it seems almost everyone has a theory, an idea of what caused the virus or why the governments are responding the way they are. Opinions are strong and fixed and people are fighting about what we think. I feel it is right to question, to open to the possibility that all is not what it seems, but when we form a fixed opinion, create an answer, we stop listening and instead, close ourselves. We are using our minds to try and understand something that we cannot. We are trying to make sense of the chaos that we find ourselves in. We do not know where we will find ourselves when this time has passed. But in the process we are feeding the fear, anger and the shock of seeing everything we thought we knew collapse. I honestly feel that this serves very little purpose, even though I find myself doing the same thing.
We cannot make sense of the chaos, none of us know what this is truly about or what is coming. So what happens if we stop focusing on our minds that want to understand, analyse, solve? Stop using our minds to try and push away, distract ourselves from what we feel, and instead drop below this. Drop down by breathing into the belly, feeling our bodies, acknowledging that we are scared, that we feel out of control. Instead of thinking up solutions, dive into the mystery that we find there. What happens if we let go of needing the answers and instead simply open to the questions, live the questions, breath the questions and see where that takes us? Dropping into that place where we do not know anything.
Life is a mystery that our thinking mind wants to know, assess, control and understand, creating tension and fear, but our beingness, our inner wisdom becomes expansive when we open to that mystery. When we open to accepting that we may never truly know anything, and maybe we do not need to. When we open to pause there, pause with the feelings, the emotions, the fear, pause in the space below the ideas. We then can open ourselves to deep listening, open ourselves to the inner guidance that we can see when the clouds, created by the over attachment to our thinking mind, are cleared. Not so we can solve or fix or know anything, but so we can move into the flow of that mystery. So we can live our fullest lives, as a drop of water in the flowing river. We can then hear what it is we are meant to do next, what is being called of us as individuals and collectively. If we follow the impulses that come when we align ourselves to the mystery rather than acting from fear, if we act without needing to know what the outcome will be, we can find our way.
So, I really want to encourage you (and myself), whenever you feel the tension rising and the energy moving out of the body and into the head. Whenever you find yourself attaching to an opinion or fighting someone elses. Whenever you feel agitated or confused, terror or depression, to instead use all the tools in your toolkit, be it sound, singing, yoga, dance, movement, rhythm, meditation, walking, gardening or more. Use your toolkit to come back to the wisdom of your wholeness, come back into the body which we so often cut ourselves off from. Come back to yourself.
If you feel you need help or support to do this you are welcome to get in touch with myself or Mat.
I want to finish with the words of Rainer Maria Rilke:
Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
Quiet friend, who has come so far,
feel how your breathing widens the space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower,
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the cup tastes bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night, be the mystery
at the crossroads of your senses.
Be the meaning revealed there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent Earth, I flow.
To the rushing water speak, I am.
~ Rilke (translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows)
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