Fault Lines

When I read the daily news these days I feel as if more and more

are appearing in our country and all around the world. It’s disturbing and frightening. Sometimes I feel as if we are standing at a precipice of endings of so many things. And I have to keep reminding myself to stay in the present moment and to find stillness within the seeming urgency of our times. Frequently I stop reading or listening to news to maintain my equilibrium. And this week I began watching my all-time favorite series, Ted Lasso, again. It’s so good to immerse myself in the laughter and joy this program brings me.

The question I keep asking myself is how to move beyond fear to embrace the coming transitions with wisdom and love. And I’m not sure that I have either the answers or the skills to do so. Then I remember what it was like when our first daughter was born. With labor pains overwhelming me and never having been through childbirth before I had to let go of knowing what came next. A part of me was screaming, “I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this after all!” But the only way forward was through this huge unknown. I made it through, our beautiful daughter made it through. We can do hard things. And now is a time that calls for us to do just that.

Life will break your heart, and life may take everything you have and everything you hope for…but I believe that in the darkness there will be beauty, and there will be love. And every now and then, it will feel like more than enough.
— Kate Bowler

We all need to develop practices and capacities that invite us to embrace the deep transitions ahead. Perhaps these endings are the birth of new ways of being.

It feels a little like we are being asked to be doulas for ourselves, our communities, our country, and the world, giving birth to new ways of being and living in the world. We also need to also learn to sit with death, cultivating our ability to see the endings that are occurring as closures that are ushering in something we cannot yet see. Like the work of giving birth or conscious dying, we need to move beyond fear and embrace the deep transitions ahead with wisdom and love. Endings are not failures, they are part of the cycle of life.

The only way out is through my friends.

“…our task at all times is the same: to try our hardest to commit ourselves to the things that matter most in our brief and miraculous lives.
Devote your attention to what you know, in your heart of heart, really matters: meaning, beauty, love, wonder, and gratitude for this earth.”
— Cristin Ellis

The only way out is through.

May you walk in beauty.

Note: Playing around with flower photos today as the cold persists here in Minnesota.