The Spaciousness of Uncertainty
photo by Kelly Sell
I am sitting at my computer, having just finished typing up the sequence for tomorrow’s Asana Junkies class. Tomorrow begins the fifth session of Livestream Asana Junkies, making me marvel at how far we have come together and how much longer sheltering-in-place has lasted than I anticipated back in March. From the initial beginnings on the Anymeeting webinar platform to the shift to Zoom to my new, more interactive set up and with materials posted in a much more user-friendly forum, I am grateful to be in such good and steady company.
The learning curve has been clunky at best— full of mistakes, mishaps, and misunderstandings and yet, we have continued to roll out our mats, to tune in live together or via recording, and to explore the poses in one another’s good company. While this time period has held both internal and circumstantial challenges for almost everyone I know, there have been blessings and gifts as well. These livestream classes continue to bring me joy, a sense of connection, and a renewal of my love for practice, teaching, and the community that forms when two or more are gathered with a shared intention for transformation.
In last night’s writing group— another boon from this period of time— Mary Angelon offered the writing prompt “Today, I can see how my life has changed…”
Immediately, an image surfaced in my memory of the first days of sheltering-in-place, work cancellations, and the waves of anxiety I felt looking around my house and wondering how I could continue to pay for it all. I wrote the following piece which is a work in progress and not offered as refined writing, but as a personal reflection and heart-felt sharing.
***
Today, I can see how my life has changed since the beginning of Covid-19 when I walked around my house, looking at all my things considering how hard it would be to let go of them when I could no longer afford to live in this house. Today, Kelly and I discussed a radical downsize and the freedom we will feel when the scale of our possessions and obligations is reduced. Six short months ago, the surrender of property, possessions, and obligations felt overwhelming, scary, and tragic. Today, the possibility feels like the hint of autumn on the wind— full of promises that new possibilities exist on the other side of summer’s heat.
Today, I can see how my life has changed since the beginning of Covid-19, as my attention returns to what is essential, meaningful, and aligned with lessons Life has already taught me and I have failed to learn fully. Perhaps much of my learning is like that— Life providing lessons and me mistaking insight for integration, awareness for actuality, and momentary relief for surrender.
Yes, truth be told, my process of growing into myself has always ebbed and flowed, contracted and expanded and has always allowed me the freedom to come and go, to wander and return as the thread of God’s grace encourages my momentum, thwarts my pride, and redeems my mistakes. Truly, there is no easy way through it and this passage is not over.
But today, I can see that I am no longer on the threshold of this change. I have walked through the door into a passageway of necessary losses, unknown unfolding, and new adventures. Fires are ravaging our forests, transforming normally clean air into hazy, hazardous smoke-filled vapors unfit to breathe. So too, the fires of division, hatred, and fear are burning through our hearts creating the toxic haze of suspicion, anger, and upset that ripples through our families, communities, and nation in ways equally apocalyptic. And yet, I am not without hope that this passage— both personal and collective— has the potential to reveal a new clarity, to call us to deeper compassion, and to inspire us to more meaningful action.
***
All right y’all- like I said, not a finished piece, but interestingly enough, a friend sent me the following quote today, which relates nicely to what I was musing about last night in writing group.
“It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not a belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. … Hope locates itself in the the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes— you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million other. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting.”— Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark, 2004/2016
More soon.
