What Now?
Portland, Oregon © Leslie Cumming
“You too can be carved anew by the details of your devotion.”
What now?
It's a question I ask myself regularly the last month or so.
It’s a healthy question.
One of Hope.
Possibility.
Curiosity.
Of a way forward.
It doesn’t need an immediate answer.
It’s gentle, purposeful, aggressive, loving, or fluid --- as my energy and the days dictate.
It’s showing me the gift of time, grace, and play.
It asks me to turn it over, around, upside down, and inside out.
It challenges me to scrape away layers (armor) and not build new layers (armor). To stay open and vulnerable (damn it).
It asks me to try it on – like the ultimate closet of fabric and clothes to begin to stitch a new way forward.
To carve out new ways of being and doing around work, play, connection, creativity, communicating, and community.
To not go back to normal; to retire what is not working, worn, and no longer serving.
To embrace the unknown, and the beauty of evolution, and new.
It challenges me to evolve into a better version of myself.
It reminds me that I'm built of and for love, kindness, curiosity, integrity, courage, and resilience.
It grounds me when I become unmoored.
It reminds me to see the wild and unknown beauty in the dark, and the shallows.
That care and love are different. No less important, just different.
That each can be a healthy connection or anchor. But not always.
That each requires time, effort, love, honesty, and kindness.
It reminds me that to walk into the dark and shallows is to know that I’ve crossed a Rubicon of my own — and that while I can’t see the light, yet, I (we) will, even in these times of loss and ambiguity.
It's reintroduced me to the healthy concept of duality - of embracing knowing and not knowing.
It’s hard as hell.
It’s the way forward AND deeply healing.
How about you? What now for you?
With love. L