the space in between….10-11-17

The rectangular glass table held sun’s gleam, kindling open faces around me, many deeply absorbed in conversations stimulated by the Esalen workshop morning. I turned to a mid-West pediatrician and asked about her experience with scoliosis, which is often detected in teen growth-spurt years. Over 17 years she tracked outcome in response to simple instructed exercise given each spinal curve-y youngster. She was quite clear that those who followed through, emerged in late adolescence with straight spines. And as much as I love this anecdotal information and could wax eloquent on the implications, I am more curious right now with how this information moved through me.

In no time at all I was wondering about what was happening in this community, envisioning early intervention in Sacramento, how that might be approached. In my active imagination effective programming was already implemented and manifesting change. O.K. a bit vulnerable here, maybe this is not your style, and yet this is such a solid example of the way we are human. Instead of allowing this sparkling information to waft through me, in love with the miracle of it, appreciative of the brilliance, I latched on to it and ran, making the giant leap to action.

In the fast pace of our existence, we might find ourselves doing this in ways large and small multiple times a day. Letting go of one activity and, with barely a breath, falling in to the next. Or holding on to all of our commitments and then (still without a breath) adding just one more thing.

“We can honor the space between no longer and not yet.” Nancy Lewis

We can? What would this really look like? Well, we have the trees as our teachers right now. Did you know that the leaves do not just fall off the branches? The tree, in all it’s wisdom, feels the seasonal change. Knows that nourishing resources are dwindling. Knows that it cannot support all the leaves it bore last spring. The tree actually ejects each and every leaf. Letting go is happening in technicolor all around us right now. And is the tree planning what to do next? Kinda doubtful. In the poem A Necessary Autumn, Rumi reminds us that “inside each of us, there’s continual autumn. Our leaves fall and are blown out over the water.” Earlier in the poem he pleads “I have one small drop of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.”

And this is my prayer this week. May we appreciate this season of letting go, allow our small drops of knowing to dissolve for a spell. Embrace this time of rest and hibernation. Trust that Rumi is on to our foolish busy-ness when he says “there’s a necessary dying, and then there is breathing again….be ground….be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.” Can we let go of what needs release and then honor the compostable space that creates? We need be in no hurry for spring with all it’s “moisture, intelligence, the scent of hyacinth and rose and cypress.” It will arrive on it’s own soon enough and bear fruit richer for the resting compost we have cultivated.

We moved to this invitation last Sunday and it is so alive in me, that we will be poetry in motion with these Rumi lines on Wednesday. The full text is at this LINK . The full story is in your body. Come feel it.

Being crumbled…bella