Monday, November 11, 2013
Day Eleven
Today, we move into the middle third of our month-long gratitude practice. Starting now, we'll be working with experiences in which the presence of gratitude may not be as easily identifiable as it might have been for us in the first ten days. (For an overview of the whole practice, please click here.)
Day Eleven's well known song has a well-known refrain, "The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine." Often the human mind quests certainty, definition or clarity in order to feel comfortable, happy or secure. There's a whole laundry list of places like that where the singer searches for happiness, but ultimately they're not gratifying. Finally, the less a definitive is sought, the greater ability there is for the singer's life to flourish.
How has being okay with uncertainty helped you experience a deeper wisdom or fulfillment in your life? Are there times at which relinquishing the desire for definition helped open up gratitude for you? How has "letting the mystery be" allowed you to experience thankfulness?
To help bring this gratitude home today, think of an image in your mind that symbolizes a hopeful uncertainty--an open road, the open sky, a question mark--whatever it is for you. Then, after you've thought of it, please draw it. I don't care if it's stick figures or a Picasso, please take some time to draw this symbol of uncertainty for which you're grateful, and keep it somewhere close by today and in the days to come.
--Ken
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So, I just entered my Day 10 post a few minutes ago from my journal now that I have access to a computer and wrote about how much Indigo Girls music I've been listening to again recently. Then, I open up Day 11 and it's the Indigo Girls....and a song that I listened to and sang very loudly in my car on the way to work this morning. What fun! :)
ReplyDeleteKen, I also really enjoy thinking about the imagery of the phrase, "hopeful uncertainty," so thank you! And if it's not already a song title, I think it would be a great one!!!! Every time I listen to the song "Mystery" by the Indigo Girls, I am always struck by the imagery of certain lines in the song, "My heart the red sun, your heart the moon clouded," and " Maybe that's all that we need
Is to meet in the middle of impossibility
We're standing at opposite poles
Equal partners in a mystery."
So I think these are the images I'm going to attempt to draw that symbolize a hopeful uncertainty to me.......
As a pagan, the mystery of uncertainty plays a big part in the rituals that I perform. When you perform a rite for a magickal intention, you have no idea what, if anything at all, will happen. You can't see it happening, if you get what you asked for you can't tie correlation to causation, and if you could, you couldn't say for certain how or why it happened. There are lots of theories surrounding if and why magickal practice works, and all of them come down to speculation. One thing that can be observed, however, is the effect that a powerful ritual can have on the person(s) performing it. So if a ritual changes you mentally, that alone opens up so many other possibilities. As for the speculative stuff... standing at the edge of objective reality and trying to connect yourself with the wonder of all that we don't know can be a pretty amazing experience in itself.
ReplyDeleteAs far as a symbol of hopeful uncertainty, I've always liked pictures of paths that disappear into the fog. You never know what's on the other side of the veil of mist. I decided not to draw this because I took a better picture of it when I was in Virginia this summer. I can print it out and keep it on my desk.
http://fav.me/d6ksuba
This is an appropriate meditation because night before last I was in a strange village seeking a stone cross I was led to believe was there. I arrived after 13 hours of driving and some amazing, scary, wonderful and reaffirming experiences along the way. The people of Mexico are soooo friendly and helpful. Anyway, no cross! I stayed in a "hotel" there in Tlalchichingo and left the next morning after a nice chat with a gentleman whom I guessed to be @85. He turned out to be 67. A hard life - ekeing out an existence himself and his family. He was sweet and appeared content and gave me oranges and mandarinas to eat on my trip back. This sort of thing happens to me often in Mexico - an open road, the open sky, a question mark.
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