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Pema Chodron, as usual, nails it when she describes life's energy as shifting and fluid. Don't get attached to anything or anyone because change will happen. If doesn't mean you can't love (your life as it is, your dearest other)—of course you can. You are indeed created to love. What gets you into trouble is your determination to hold on to that love no matter what.
The older I get (oh, we're not going back to that theme again, are we?)—the older I get the more I am made aware of the inevitability of loss. This is hardly an original thought. If I were being critical, I would chide myself for coming so late to such an obvious idea.
But I grew up in a small town. Oh, wait! That's no excuse, surely. Well, there was something about my young life that predisposed me to think that if I could just get it right, once and for all, then my life would unspool with no knots or glitches. Even Julian of Norwich said it (not that I knew this when I was young): All shall be well. All shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well.
But she didn't mean that smooth sailing was ahead. She meant that despite the rough seas and the shipwrecks and the total despair that might follow—despite these things, the overriding philosophy is that all shall be well.
In the last year or so I have seen accidents and disease strike many friends, many neighbours. Change is rampant. The settled life I once coveted is quite simply unattainable. Setbacks happen, and disaster arises to destroy.
The only solution is to prepare for it by knowing that life's energy is constantly shifting. Sometimes I stand when riding public transit. Although I do hold on to a pole or a strap, especially on a bumpy bus (I may be curious but I'm not stupid), I try to hold lightly, circling the pole, say, with my thumb and index finger—enough to keep from falling in the event of a sudden stop. But the point is to allow myself to balance and shift, to be flexible and movable.
This physical manifestation of the principle of shifting and changing can propel me into readiness for movement in other parts of my life: don't hold tightly. Put a little sway in your day.
Enough moralizing. In the long run, I can either do it or not do it. The next time a change affects me, will I throw a Kavanaugh-esque temper tantrum? Or will I have the courage to breathe and accept?
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
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