As our planet makes its way around the life-giving (and occasionally life-destroying – don’t get me started on the coming supernova) fiery orb whose warmth by the end of a long winter we all seem to long for, my world is also shifting accordingly and in surprising ways.
Over the winter months it has been easy to let myself become consumed by the very real worries and concerns over my future and more importantly, Eli’s future. This year of covid, lockdowns and restrictions has all but crippled what plans I had for us, forcing me to re-evaluate everything. EVERYTHING.
It also crippled any healthy living plans I might have had, literally forcing me to eat chocolate and sit at a computer for hours on end trying to write in the hope that one day I might make some money from it. Ok, I actually end up spending hours scanning rightmove for homes I wish I could afford, but shh, don’t tell anyone.
It also sent me flying into what I describe as the tower of my mind and scrambling to batten down the hatches, determined to solve this conundrum and get us out of the predicament.
My poor mind, it is not the best at solving this kind of problem because it can’t see very far. It is great at putting decisions into action and making them happen in the material world but it’s not that hot at the decision-making stage as there are too many variables for its little beleaguered self to process.
That job is hands down better suited to my spirit, that can see far and feel deeply. But what do you do when you feel you can’t hear your spirit anymore? When all the lines seem blurry? When all you can manage are flashes and glimpses of what was once a loud and fluid communication. How did it even get to this point?
I can see how anxiety pushes us into the old mind tower where we feel safe. Who wouldn’t want to hide in the tower with chocolate, wine and Netflix? Fooling ourselves into ‘thinking’ we will actually be able to think out a solution whilst in this comfortable siege. The mind is like, “don’t worry guys, I got this” but secretly it’s falling to pieces under the pressure, ending up like a dribbling wreck in the corner with empty wine bottles scattered around it.
I always considered myself a chilled-out person who doesn’t get anxious because I know the solution will always come and in the meantime this is where I am meant to be so learn from it. Blah, blah, blah. It never occurred to me that anxiety can creep in in insidious ways and before you know it it has you in its visor-like claws and has dragged you into the mind tower of doom.
But apparently it can, and in that dark tower I have been wallowing, treading water and eating cake as I gaze around at a vast ocean of nothingness, with no idea which direction to swim in.
“Just swim”, the sea says to me, “trust me to get you to where you need to be.”
“Ok”, I think, “I can do that. I love the ocean and the ocean loves me. All is bliss.”
And all is bliss, until the mind kicks in.
“Yeah, but what if you expend all this energy going in this direction and you end up on a rocky crag, with no way off, doomed to die alone?”
“Hmm, good point mind. Do I really want to end up on a rocky crag eating seaweed and having a lone seagull as a friend - forever?”
To be fair I do consider the option but then I think of Eli and decide he needs more than a seagull and a crazy, shaggy haired mother, who let’s face it has probably sprouted a beard by then, for company.
So, I stop swimming and start treading water again.
I go to the forest to soothe my spirit, that by this point is getting quite agitated with my mind’s relentless foray into the field of decision making, and the trees tell me that I can choose any way I want.
“All paths are made up of shadow and light and all paths lead us somewhere. You must choose your path and walk it as best you can”
As serenely as a sage I absorb this information, knowing in my spirit it is true.
“Great! Thank you, oh wise ones”, I say with my hand on their aged bodies.
Then I walk away and the mind kicks in.
“Yeah, but…”
Goddammit!
I really shouldn’t have to deal with things like making money. I should be living in a cave, communing with spirit and living off chi. Then I remember Eli and the image pops, like a soap bubble spraying me with the remnants of the dream. He can’t live naked in the woods talking to birds and having squirrels feed him nuts. Social services would swoop in and whisk him away to institutional hell in a heartbeat. To be fair, he wouldn’t want a life without Nutella and his tablet anyway. Sigh.
“You need to be a bridge between worlds” I remember the forest in Brazil telling me as I contemplated the dilemma of my soul’s longing to become a mystic hermit but feeling tethered to the modern world for love of my family.
“I don’t know how!” I cried back to it.
To be honest, I didn’t even understand what the forest meant. I may understand a little better now, but I cannot seem to maintain an open bridge, or portal between the worlds for very long and each time I crumble and lose my way in despair.
“You can’t do it”, my mind tells me and then it proceeds to point out in great detail all the very real problems I face in my life right now because of trying for so long. Thanks for that mind, great pep talk, I think with a shudder.
I know telling myself “I can’t” is not helpful at all and setting up a damaging neuropathway in my brain but I am too numb on coffee and cake to do much about it. So, I let it slide and hope I will pick myself up at some point.
I have now decided that after my winter of spectacular water treading, I need to drag my awareness (and growing arse) away from the confines of my mind tower bliss (or hell) and renew regular practices that centre me back into my spirit. Just as the sun returns and the blossoms unfurl so too I shall be reborn – again...I hope.
I know I need to find the answers within. I know I must trust my intuition, to feel the way forward not think it forward. Thinking comes in later, once practical choices need to be made. It is clear that the only way to get out of my predicament is to do the work to quieten my mind and hear my spirit again. To trust.
Trust in life, in government, in the world we thought we knew has been eroded over this passed year. Our minds are going in over-drive trying to make sense of everything when perhaps we would be better off listening to the wisdom of our spirit.
Life is communicating with us all the time. Everything is alive, imbued with consciousness that is essentially, seamless information. To hear it, to live it is a very different life to the modern one. It is a whole other frequency band where the brain makes different connections between stimuli and things hold a different meaning altogether. Indigenous peoples all around the world understand this.
How do we bridge these worlds? To bring this awareness of the aliveness of all things into the demands of a modern life. Something has to give and I don’t think it should be the spirit.
Any ideas?
...and don't say cake.
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