The mystery
It’s funny how you can spend so much time trying to make a decision, trying to cover all bases. Yet as I keep being reminded of late, we cannot know, and it is in the unknown that we might feel more alive, more vibrant, because in the unknown we have opened ourselves up to the great mystery. If we always know, then we leave little space for grace, for the magic, for the mystery.
Yet we all know, from lockdown, how difficult it is to live with uncertainty, to not know. Our whole education system and our society is based on knowing. We want to know, to understand, to be able to control, or feel as if we have some control over things. The scientists are especially spun out by Covid-19, because they don’t know its potential, and they are not yet able to control it, or make sense of it. The very foundation of our society as we know it, of knowing it, has been rocked.
I keep hearing of people who have injured themselves, or who have suffered physically in some way of late, and I wonder whether it is due to this deep shaking of our roots, as we are asked to uproot ourselves from the world we knew, to a new world, that has yet been spun. We’re in the liminal zone, between one way of being and another. It’s a beautiful space, because it is not known, a space of transformation, where true change begins and ends, of shifting space and being neither here nor there.
Coming off Facebook is certainly me stepping into the unknown, and yet it is also so known, because there was once a life lived without Facebook, I didn’t miss it then, because I didn’t have anything to miss and yet I don’t miss it now either. The decision took so long to take as I weighed up the options, but at the end of the day, the decision was already made, I already knew. I just needed to take the leap.
Deciding to keep Elijah at home for the rest of this term and ‘school’ him ourselves in our way, is also a step into the unknown, one I have contemplated for many years but have never had the courage, nor the support, nor the opportunity to put into practice. It was a decision that I played with over and over again and then all of a sudden it just became clear. This is not a school system that I want to put him in, for him to learn a new way, when it has taken him so long to settle into the old way, and here he is thriving at home and learning with all the one-to-one attention.
Once decisions are made, it is a like a weight is lifted from your shoulders that you didn’t even know what there, that your heart has been set free and you didn’t even realise that you had imprisoned it in any way. All that going backwards and forwards and back again, is at once resolved and you wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place. A new normal sets in. Life changes. But it happens in a way that feels aligned, and with ease, not as dramatic as you thought it might be.
I am reminded as always of patience. Of being OK with being in the unknown, and of not needing to rush to resolution or to fix, or to somehow create some form of security, whether that is real security or not. It’s tricky, but I feel more alive that I have felt these last few months, as if there is this whole new world that awaits, that I don’t yet know, so that it is unscripted and can be whatever we make it if we choose.
The first of my pot marigold flowers is now in bloom. I can’t tell you the joy of seeing a flower that I planted from seed, reveal it’s beauty to the world. It’s a healing plant too, although I’ll have to cut off the flowers and dry them, before soaking in oil, to make calendula oil that I can then use to make calendula cream. This is also a step into the unknown, of making my own healing portions for myself and the family, and see what might happen!
There’s no lockdown easing party for E and I. We’ve realised that too, over lockdown, that we live quiet lives, socially at least! Even my parents get to go party tonight, having maintained a weekly catch up with their group of friends on Zoom each Friday too. E has managed to escape Zoom this whole lockdown. I’m pleased to take a break from it too, and am looking forward to teaching in person again.
I’m still looking forward to the day though, when I can touch again, and share Reiki and I am sure that time will come. For now though, it is time to enjoy the unknown and the new of this world as it unfolds, allowing for the great mystery to weave its magic through our lives, come what may, thy will be done, and we have the opportunity to feel increasingly alive in the process.
Love Emma x
