The act of surrender is at direct odds with our human psyche. It goes squarely against our biological programming for survival. Fight to the end. Ensure the continuation of the species. Use all your resources to find a way to make it happen. Never give up. Be strong. You can beat this. It has become part of our programming, this deep desire to continue in the face of adversary.
But you know what? I fucking give up.
The art of surrender is rarely a graceful descent into the flow that is already occurring in the midst of our life. It is most often a rebellious tantrum of kicking and screaming, whether out loud or internal, of resistance to what is truly occurring. And honestly, if we look around, it appears that the flow is taking us into one complete and unprecedented implosion of the world as we know it.
WE ARE CREATORS, AND YES, I STILL GIVE UP
We are creators of our life, of our destiny, and yet, sometimes we don’t know when to give up and let ourselves be carried by the own current of our unique unfolding. Hence the chaotic descent into many forms of resistance until, at last, our reserves are expired and we have nothing left to fight with or against. Then, and most likely only then, do we surrender to the wider and broader forces that move our life into being. Today, I am at that threshold. But my arrival is not without a whole lot of turning to positive aspects, reframing of the nature of situations, rewriting stories, companioned with a wagonload of disappointed tears, a shit-ton of heart felt incredulous anger, and a large dose of a sense of failure.
Sound familiar? No? Then this may not be the best thing for you to read today. I’m not in the mood for positive platitudes. I’m in the thick of it and I have no time for surface nuances. I’m in the well. And you know what? I’ve decided to let go and let it take me. This is the art of surrender. The last option in a long list of to-do’s that are not quite cutting it. So down we go. You in? Don’t worry, you’ll only be an observer. I’ll take the heat. I’m used to it. It’s something I tend to do well – just usually not gracefully.
Beneath the grip of anguish, misery, pain, suffering, torment—choose your adjective, there are plenty to go around—there is something more. If we only have the courage to let go of the banging against. Like I mentioned at the beginning, this is a tremendously difficult endeavor for most humans. It does not come naturally. We have to cultivate it, nurture the experience against our sensible judgements. Sometimes we do it artfully, and sometimes not. Honestly, any time we find a way to surrender, it is a process full of grace. Yet, we are often so distraught that we are unable to notice at the time. Our beings are lined with grace. Did you know that? Inside you, outside you, every single thing you see, and everything you don’t is occupied with a grace that is beyond verbal description.
Being in the throes of one of the largest shifts of human consciousness, we don’t always have the luxury of being in this grace with clear vision. Surrender happens when we have no more conscious options left at our disposal; when we are at a loss, when we have no idea what to do. Then, after a fair bit of last grasping for solutions and angry outbursts, we simply have no energy, psychic or literal, to hold up the narrative of what should be. Here is the magic threshold—the entry into the unknown. The nemesis to our human nature.
Yet, here, where we have no solutions, is a place where solutions are born. Do we have the courage to let go of our mind; this brilliant, never stopping part of us designed to keep churning out productive or even unproductive thoughts? The challenge with our mind in these situations is they only have the ability to come to known thoughts. Things that are in existence already. And as we have noted, we are at a shift point where we have never been before. We can’t continue with what has been. What has been is no longer enough. So where do we find this ‘something more’ needed to fuel us onward? This something more is inspiration. And we have to dip under the current consciousness of both our own mind and the collective in order to touch it. Hence, the descent into the well – underneath the current state and surface of things.
THE WELL
When we first drop into the well, there is a slight chaos of disorientation, but after that, there is a deep silence. It is similar to submerging your ears literally underwater, yet it is a deeper and wider. Sometimes, it’s frightening. It is a silence so loud it fills your entire body. Sometimes it feels like you are being spun and if you close your eyes, the possibility of your disappearance is so grand you refuse the gesture. This is a place the Greeks called ‘aisthesis.’ It is a place of touching the world more deeply. There is an energy here unlike the frenetic whirl of surface energy. Here, there is a pulse of life, but it is synchronized with every other existing thing. And you can feel it. This is a place of touching and being touched by the world itself. This is the world of myth and creation. Once we move into this place, we wonder why on earth did we resist this place for so long? It is utterly magical.
Here, there is a solution or answer to every question we may have. But a word of caution: don’t start thinking about your previous state’s problems. You will be pulled right back up out of this magical place. Let your conscious Being be nourished here for a bit. Here, there is no hurry. There is no problem. It is all an unfolding, with interactions between molecules and much smaller particles dancing with what Is, in what could be called a perpetual state of wonder and awe. Yes, awe. Consciousness being in awe of itself.
Then the smile finds its way to your face, and we know something has been deposited into our Being. This something we can’t deny, yet can’t quite name besides ‘awe’ and it is there, here, that I know I wish to place my trust. Here, in this place, is where observation of the simple, everyday flight of a bird is more important than any thought I had a few minutes earlier. Then, spontaneously, I take a deep breath. It comes naturally, my Being knows how to breathe in the world. Here we are literally breathing in the world. Here we are being ‘inspired’, again, quite literally. Sometimes we simply forget this place exists.
This state ‘aisthesis’ means ‘to breathe in’ literally, the world around you. It is a dance and an interaction—a relating and a relationship. There is a wisdom here, and ancient something that has been happening for billions of years. When we drop into this place, underneath the surface of things, we naturally expand into that wisdom. Our cells vibrate in resonance with it. We realign ourselves to something more, perhaps profound, and palpably more meaningful. And here, regardless of the receiving of any answers, we are renewed simply by being in resonance with This.
This place can be frightening for some. It is a place where we ‘unknow’ ourselves. We are no longer these people banging out a life. Here, we become what we truly are: Beings experiencing the astonishing states of creation in every breath. It is unraveling and defining at the same time—a paradoxical place where time and light are simply different. It is a space that is not easy to hold, at least at first.
It is the essence of the breath of creation breathing itself, pulsing itself into existence in every moment. Yet when we touch this place, however we get here, it is seared and imprinted into our consciousness. We keep it with us; for sustenance, for nourishment, a place to simply co-mingle with until the surface calls us back up. We can hold it, though, and at least remember we had that experience where existence simply Is, and we are a both a beautiful participant and observer at the same time.
And that, my friends, is truly a divine thing.