#44: simplifying in the wilderness
🌞 Back after an unintentional hiatus with: an awareness meditation, thoughts on simplifying, and lessons from the wilderness.
Good morning! 🌞 How are you, sweet ones out there? You may have noticed an absence of emails/posts as of late, and it was not intentional, but I suppose I took a little mental break. Forgive me? I knew you would.
I should know better by now that anytime I take a trip somewhere, even somewhere close to home, for just a few days, I slip out of the rhythm of gathering thoughts and organizing them into structures for you. Last week, I went on a little road trip to another province, and despite my well-intentioned plans, I did not write at all. It’s nice to choose connection, to be present with others, to be immersed in the ethos of a place, instead of being with myself. I spend a lot of time with myself, after all, and sitting to write, as wonderful as it is, can feel selfish when others are vying for the little time I have to give.
To share something with all of you is a great delight for me, but I often feel torn between the options: be alone with my thoughts with no pressure to write them down, be open to the unfolding unknown and potential for kismet encounters, or sit in front of a computer screen and hope that whatever leaps from my fingers on the keypad makes sense.
Anyway, I am choosing to be present with the first two instead of being online here. Sometimes, it’s just what the soul requires: To be captivated by the flittering of leaves beyond a windowpane; to be engulfed in the silence that precursors an unexpected conversation; to make space in the mind for the passing parade of illogical mutterings. Oh, how many there are!
Today, I am sharing about some of the inner and outer processes I find myself in. About writing less and listening more, simplifying my rhythms and schedule, and understanding how it all connects to this spiritual valley/wilderness terrain I am still in. I cannot rush my way through it — I ebb and flow in surrender to time, holding onto the belief that change is bound to come (sooner or later).
I love you all dearly. Thank you for reading, for contemplating with me, and for sharing this space called life.
lvs
xx
simplifying in the wilderness
Writing always helps me sort out my thoughts. It has often been a way to externally process how I feel and what I think and what is happening and why and how and why not and how not? It still does; it’s still a faithful helper. But these days, I am giving thoughts passage through me rather than containing them. Not everything needs to be held down and tied up. Not everything needs to be documented. Not everything needs permanence or logic or reasoning. Sometimes, the best thing we can do with our thoughts, our emotions, the words that come, is let them go.
It’s liberating for a creative person to just let things pass through. To be dazzled by the colours and shapes that materialize out of passionate dialogue. To languish and smirk over ideas that appear after a bottle of wine. To discover delightfully new revelations and simply let them be. I suppose I am simmering at the moment — bubbling happily over the element of the moment, like a pot of water — and that’s all. That’s all that needs to be. No great actions or content or projects. Just being.
How wonderful it is to just be.
There are days when I feel the pressure to manifest something out of my mental process — to conjure a product of some kind to offer to the world, to work towards something, to prove that I am busy. There is always this intriguing demand in a consuming world: give us, give us, feed us, feed us. Productivity is always a looming scale waiting to measure me at the end of the day. What did you do today? I am beginning to accept a quiet response: I was being and moving and flowing with the world today. I had a four-hour conversation. I did yoga and meditated. I visited the home of a friend. I ate a really good croissant. I walked to the library. I lit a beautiful candle and read a book. I am living — no, luxuriating — in each of the present minutes I am given. This is my productivity in the landscape I occupy.
Relishing in the simple delights of my life, there is something captivating about a world that is enough and something so nourishing to know that I am, too. How often do we rest and allow what we know to become embodied in us? How often do we stay still and let what we’ve learned teach us again and again?
I have been simplifying everything lately. I find that the more we have, the more layers there are between ourselves and the spirit of God. Stripping material objects and possessions and desires away allows us to discover that nothing else is needed for our happiness — all we need already exists in plain and natural form. It is the art of subtraction; the discipline of removal that clears away the desires that block us from the lucid yearning for God.
Last month, I curiously noticed a pattern that occurs between seasons and my new response to it. I have, like many others, this innate obsession with buying new things for my closet and home at the first sign of Spring. The atmosphere curls open like a flower revealing the nectar of new beginnings, and so I fill online shopping carts and write out a wish-list. I buy three shirts at once. I soldier out of my house, like a cow in a herd, driven by some instinct to buy new sandals. Do I need any of these things? No. Do I wonder now why I bought them? Yes. What void am I trying to fill? Let’s not answer that.
Everything, everything I could ever want is already mine. Not to mention my home is already teeming with lovely little things — my closet littered with shoes and shirts and whatever else. My cup is full — but why does it feel so empty?
Wanting is a hungry mouth that leads to an insatiable space inside of us. Wanting eats up every beautiful thing and still wants more. If you find yourself in wanting, needing another set of something you already have, could you look over the edge of that barrier to see what the mouth is asking for? For me, I think, sometimes it is a desire to feel beautiful and exciting and refreshed. A new outfit shines brighter than the rest. Sandals in the current hue draw eyes toward me. I want more: compliments, value, belonging. I want to be seen and noticed. I want to be striking, interesting. We all do it, in one way or another. It’s okay. But ultimately, they are fillers, they are frauds, and they leave us bloated but still hungry. If you want to see and hear and taste divine things, you need to cleanse your palate of wanting.
I suppose I am still moseying through a valley here. The valley, for those who don’t know, is a metaphor for a spiritual experience where in many ways, the shadows overtake the light and we are plunged into deep questioning, pondering, and sometimes, confusion. Everything we thought we knew falls away, vanishes into a puff of uncertainty. Everything we held onto that was comforting and familiar is stripped from our hands. As I wake up to the reality that I may indeed be in another round of the valley or wilderness or wherever, I am reminded of something David Brooks said in his book, The Second Mountain. While talking about the valley seasons that every soul goes through, he mentioned a process that takes as long as it needs. It’s a three-step process, according to his observations:
“The valley is where we shed the old self so the new self can emerge. There are no shortcuts. There’s just the same internal three-step process that the poets have described from time eternal: from suffering to wisdom to service. Dying to the old self, cleansing in the emptiness, resurrecting in the new. From the agony of the valley, to the purgation of the desert, to the insight on the mountaintop.” (Brooks, The Second Mountain.)
There it is, do you see? “Cleansing in the emptiness.” I am cleansing my soul, stripping things away, simplifying my life, traveling light, on my way to a mountaintop somewhere. I can only hope that’s where I am heading.
Brooks often says in his chapter on the wilderness season that when we are unsure what to do with ourselves or with our lives, when the topic of vocation or purpose feels a bit murky, the best thing we can do is go out alone and pack lightly. Solitude in the valley (or wilderness) changes our perspective and sense of self, because everything in the valley moves slowly, almost painfully so, doing a deep work within us. IYKYK. January feels like a valley for everyone, that’s why we call it the month that lasts a year. January was the most agonizing month of my life. I faced each day like a wrestler in a ring. And each day, I was pinned to the ground. I felt defeated by time, anxious about my life, without any distractions to cling to. Time was a vivisector slowly and meticulously peeling layers off of me. For many months, it felt like this: deep and slow, empty and uncomfortable. As much as I can look back with disdain, I am very grateful for those precious days where I shed the old self so that the new could emerge.
Am I saying I have emerged? Let’s not bring certitudes into it, lest I am back next week moaning about change again. But the hidden heart of the valley is self-acceptance and contentment. We are invited, in this sacred and silent place, to drink long and deep until we are no longer thirsting for anything else. God is waiting, the world is waiting, it is an inner opulent feast of fulfillment. And yes, I can say I am drinking my fill.
a meditation for awareness
The other day, I sat out in a familiar place and just observed what was around me. Instead of trying to create a moment, I tuned my awareness to what already is. Turning my ear to what is whispering all around. I think sometimes that’s all we really need help with: to be aware, to listen, to settle in to the now.