When the rug gets pulled out from under you. When the trap door opens up beneath you. When you are unaware, without warring, things are not going to go as you had planned. The best laid plans and plan all you want, Ya know? In the end what happens, happens. Be prepared. Uncertainty is inevitable and a false sense of security is the only kind there is. Hold on loosely.
Sure, it’s winter in North America. Anything could happen and it did. Once in a generation storm is what some meteorologists called it. The pessimist in me says Mother nature just gave me the big fuck you. But I swear I didn’t do anything to deserve it. How narcissistic of me. To take it personally. Like Nature herself has a plan to upset my apple cart. Shit that sounds too much like believing in an Old Testament vengeful god to my ears. No. I should remember one of Ruize’s’ 4 agreements” never take anything personally.” But that still does little to suave the wound.
I still feel like the archaic anxiety of the wound of abandonment is destined to be reopened and come alive when things go asunder…
Her flight was canceled. And the rest of our holiday plans. When you only see your paramour a handful of times a year every moment counts. Something rare and precious, when denied, leaves a mark. What does it mean?
We strive and struggle to find a firm place to stand, while the ground beneath us opens up to the abyss. I’m left clutching at straws. Such is the life of an alchemical aphorist I suppose. But meaning? Lessons learned? Have no expectations.
If the two natural shocks that flesh is air to are Abandonment and Overwhelment, why must they come together as a torturous duo. I mean, the moment I feel abandoned I instantly am overwhelmed by the feeling of the need to fill the hole left inside. And conversely if I feel overwhelmed by the endless litany of items on the to-do list, I tend to desire abandoning even my own dreams and passion. It’s a cruel teeter totter in the playground of fools. Of course, it is just that which leads the Fools to the edge of the cliff, blithely prepared to step off.
Which brings to mind a time I was in the Grand Canyon. Late at night on the North Rim. My friend Bill and I had driven all the way from Anchorage AK, we were only ½ way through our transcontinental journey. We, or at least I, had been imbibing Meyers dark rum most of the day. Now its 1 am and we are mesmerized by the vision of the Grand Canyon folding and falling off into the dark beneath a spectral canopy of stars filling the heavens above. I noticed a spire in front of me. A column of stone rising from the floor of the canyon. A Proterozoic sandstone pilar with a flat surface about 8 feet in diameter. And bout the same distance away from where I stood. It seemed reasonable at the time. The question, “What would it look like form over there?”
So I jumped.
Later Bill confessed in tears to me. That he was certain I had decided “today was a good day to die” but that thought never crossed my mind. I had no doubt.
That is until I returned to that spot the next morning after sun rise. One miniscule mistake would have led me straight to hell. A 1000-foot drop at least. I was stunned. I was in disbelief. I had taken that leap. No one could ever convince me it was possible. But for that one moment I was the number Zero on the Tarot. I was the Fool. Stepping off the edge of the cliff. It was a dramatic rendition and an apt metaphor for so many other fool-ish ”leaps” I have taken. As of yet, none of the falls have killed me. Though the peril is always there.
Disappointment only erodes the soul if you are unable to let go of the outcome based on expectations.
I am disappointed her flight was canceled to be sure. But I am the waterfall. I am the passing clouds. I am the ember drawing air. I am the ray of light near the mouth of the cave. I am that Fool. Listen. Hear my bells? They rattle to break the silence.
We are the atonal melody of time set against an unpredictable beat.
If you spend all your time trying to learn how to count you might miss the next flight of fancy that twist the rhythm in a new direction.
Victorian reductionists wanted to explain the prognostications of the Oracle of Delphi as simple random utterances caused by the inhalation of odd gasses emitted from the Earth. They could not handle the notion of anything Super-natural at work, so they attempted to explain away the mystery. In doing so missed out on the truth.
“All healing comes as a result of an encounter with the sacred.”
So Jump.