Last week while in California, all the family issues and dynamics I’ve been trying to hold at bay came swirling into my awareness. I’d taken my daughters to California in an effort to take a vacation from it all. But, as with any “geographic,” everything came right along with me. Sibling relationship issues, my mother-daughter relationships with my own mother and with my two daughters, relationship issues with my spouse–they all loomed there larger than life. Facing the reality of the pain and dysfunction, and my own fear, brought me to my knees. My heart opened. What I wanted to do though was just close it all up again and run away. Or find a way to “manage” it all so I could feel better.
Neither was really an option–my eyes and my heart were opened. But then, what do I do? How do I proceed? Those questions took my breath away at times during the last days of last week. I could feel the panic rise within. My girlfriend advised me that I just need to step up to the plate–to be present to what is happening–and to take everything I’ve learned up to now and practice what I’ve come to KNOW. No more thinking, no more planning what I’ll say or do, no need to figure everything out–no more of all that CONTROL stuff I do so well! Tough order!
I love being the student: researching, reading, journaling, imparting my wisdom to others, theorizing, and all the other things I do to stay in my head. All the things I do to keep the fear away and to make myself feel safe. What became so crystal clear is that it’s time to stop being the student. It’s time to come out of my safety zone because even that “safety zone” is really just an illusion. Nothing can move or change as long as I stay locked in that intellectual cycle. So, it’s time to act–from my heart–and to BE with the “as is” state of my life. Of course, even as I write it here, I know that for me it’s easier said than done!
Last Thursday, however, I remembered a segment in the movie we watched at Collage a couple of weeks ago–it seemed to hold the answer of how I need to “proceed.” In “How to Cook Your Life,” the Zen practitioner and cook, Edward Espe Brown, shares a poem to make a point. It’s entitled “The Little Duck.” In this poem, the duck doesn’t think or strategize or look for more information or react. He just sits and IS with the situation he is in. He is a part of all that is. He doesn’t struggle or seek to escape. He doesn’t try to look or move beyond where he is. He relaxes into exactly where he is, even as the ocean swells around him. He holds onto his internal calm in the apparent “storm” taking place.
I can do this too. I have prepared for this moment for a very long time. I will be a duck in the swirling ocean. I will be present to the “as is” situation. I will act, when that is required, rather than react. I will sit in the swirl rather than become a part of it. I will walk my talk and live from a place of integrity, authenticity, and love. And so BE IT, and so IT IS! One moment at a time, one breath at a time, in this present place.
THE LITTLE DUCK
Now we are ready to look at something pretty special.
It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf,
And he cuddles in the swells.
There is a big heaving in the Atlantic,
And he is a part of it.
He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests IN the Atlantic.
Probably he doesn’t know how large the ocean is,
And neither do you.
But he realizes it,
And what does he do, I ask you. He sits down in it.
He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity—which it is.
That is religion, and the duck has it.
Excerpt from “The Little Duck”
By David C. Babcock
The New Yorker
October 4, 1947
And so it is!
It is a great life lesson to take each moment as it comes. I too like to be the planner and try to control what happens. Luckily I have good teachers in my family members who remind me to breathe and just trust that all will work out as it should. I also practice Ho-oponopono: I love you, I am sorry, please forgive me, Thank you.
http://www.thepresentpath.com/2010/08/09/the-silver-lining/