Like Water
photo by Pasquale Benedetto
Life is full of paradoxes and confusion. It feels like a complicated puzzle to solve, but the navigation through it is really quite simple. The key is in the way we hold it and our concepts about it. This is where things get jammed up.
Concepts need to be fluid. Let them in. Let them create a context for you. Let them frame an experience. Let them serve you for a period of time.
Then let them go. Don’t hold them too tightly or until they become frozen and solid and static. Don’t invite them to move in. Instead treat them like houseguests or temporary visitors.
This will keep your life fluid and flexible. It will keep the space around things, like fresh air from an open window. It will allow you to stay available and receptive to what’s happening in the moment. It will soften your mind and your heart.
Imagine yourself moving through the obstacles of life like water around rocks in a river. There is no resistance; it just flows around them without effort, without confrontation and without getting stuck.
It just flows.
Sometimes the movement is quiet and still and at other times the movement is fast and intense, but it is always moving, always flowing forward.
A closed mind is a death wish. A closed heart is even worse. It is death itself.
The paradox of life invites us to be invested in life, to fully participate in it, but somehow also detached from it, so as not to get caught up in it or take it too seriously.
A tall order.
But again, if we remember the image of water flowing, we can see ourselves moving around the hard edges, softening them with our vulnerability and willingness to be open. Receiving without judging. Meeting life with our availability. Saying yes to what life brings us, gently forgetting the concepts we held about it yesterday, keeping an open mind, and really seeing and hearing and soaking in the newness of this moment. This is the place where life becomes magical, the wonderment surfaces and we’re inspired to greet life with open arms again.
This feels like a razor’s edge, but it is truly riding life like a surfer rides waves, paying attention to the height and breadth of the wave and meeting it with everything we have, so that we can have the rush of entry into the core of life. Diving into the middle of it without fear or hesitation, but with excitement and the joy of being.
Living in the awareness that we don’t know what’s going to happen next keeps us fresh and available and opens the channel to bring us into the flow. It is a more childlike way to meet the moment, with open eyes, open mind and open heart.
In this place, life conspires to help us move forward with less effort as opposed to fighting against the tide. Letting go and letting it carry us opens up a much broader range of possibilities than if we are always in control and trying to manipulate the outcome.
Yes, there are paradoxes and mysteries that we may never solve. There are things that just don’t make sense. We can either greet those aspects of life with reluctance and resistance or we can recognize that the unknown is where true freedom lies.
