“All the buried seeds
crack open in the dark
the instant they surrender
to a process they can’t see.”
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Have you ever felt totally in the dark? Maybe your darkness is an illness, the loss of a loved one, financial scarcity, unfulfilling work, loneliness, a broken heart, feeling stuck or having no way out, indecision, grief or a general uneasiness about life. Your darkness could be a friendship ending, a family dispute or a lost job. Darkness might have appeared in your life when you chose attitudes like getting even, needing to be right and making them pay.
If we follow the wisdom in the words of Mark Nepo…the wisdom of the seed encapsulated in the darkness…we find that the clearest path, the one that brings us into the sweet potential of the present moment…is surrender. Surrender is the most courageous choice we can possibly make.
Surrender means being with the darkness…being with it means not beating yourself up about the past and not worrying about the future. This is our ‘cracking open’…our willingness to be open to the darkness in our life. But it is not just being in the discomfort and pain…it is knowing in the core of our being that there is a process taking place…a process of renewal…a possibility of something greater…an opportunity to birth something new and exciting.
When we can be in the darkness of our life, experience it, let it flow through and all the while know that there is a greater mystery unfolding, it is possible to experience joy and peace and fulfilment and compassion and strength and confidence and prosperity and wholeness. This is the culmination of the process…the breaking through the ground and emerging into the sunlight and blossoming into our whole and unique self.
The seed has no attachment to what emerges…a weed, a flower, a grain, a tree, a grass. It has no attachment to where it emerges…beach, forest, meadow, swamp, tundra, desert, lake. Neither should we be attached to how or where we emerge…only that we do emerge. We can break through into the light if we stop giving power to the darkness and instead keep our thoughts focused on a greater possibility unfolding in our life now.
Spring is here…time to follow the wisdom of the seed!
Peace
Paula
2 Responses
Thank you Paula….have been learning to surrender to the weather…..inside and out…yesterday’s sunshine, a trip to the arboretum and the prospect of another “warm” day to get my hands into the dirt has begun to allow me to move onward..both physically and mentally….I had been having a “stuck” feeling (total judgement) until understanding that it was just time to nest for awhile…be still, warm and …not judge the process!!!
The acceptance of a “faith” is still new to me in words but has always been with me in some form/feeling of knowing all WILL be well…if I just surrender and let life unfold and get out of my own way!
Thanks for the brain fertilizer this morning!!!
Love,
Lori
Lori
Thank you for your wise words and openess to life!
It can be so freeing to recognize the power of surrender. The thing we don’t sometimes realize is that we are always in the process…of re-membering the power of getting out of our own way and trusting a much greater power working through us.
Be well my friend.
Peace
Paula