8.4.14 Rediscovering What We Truly Know, As We Grow Older

     For so long, we humans trusted our sense of what existed.

Then we grew up a little bit, not quite enough.  

     And became a demanding, arms impetuously crossed, foot-stampingly crab who insisted upon PROOF.

     Of so many many things. Like  that God or the Divine existed (PROOVE it to MEEEEE)(I can't find any proof!)

     (Oh, goodness. Does a tree need to prove they are a tree? Must love  prove it exists if you can't smell it or see it or taste it? GIve me a break.)

     Sigh. Growing a little bit, but not enough yet, puts one in a  conundrum. You can walk around and open doors yourself and talk some, but you refuse to admit you are screeching and flapping about on the ground when you need to go to bed. Really.

Some of us, as we grow older, begin to remember all that we 'knew' when we were young.

     The 'knowing' being a kind of very very deep sense of things, of feeling.

        Jung, when asked what he believed, retorted that he did not have beliefs, he had knowing.

       We have knowing. Of some experience we didn't necessarily ever think of articulating or writing down, but sometimes by accident prayed about or drew pictures of. Because the experiences we were having would just kind of naturally slip out sometimes.

When we grow older, we oftimes begin to settle. No, not gravity and bodies - haha- I know. Nope. And no, not for less. Not that, either. But as in, deep inside ourselves, once again, we at times begin to notice this deepening.

Sometimes it can be mistaken for disappointment. Because it has a tinge of surrender to it. But that's only one aspect, and it's not disappointment, although we naturally, every day, especially as our days grow fewer, do feel disappointment, and it is an important feeling to sit with.

As in " Oh, hello.Good morning. You are some of my disappointment? Ok. Alright. Makes sense. Not the most fun page in the book, but I get it. Important. Ok. So let's  you and I sit here, whenever you come to visit, and we'll sit and I'll listen to you and you can listen to me, and then we  can sit quietly and feel what is. And then I know you'll get all composted into something divine and remarkable in me and in the universe, and I can go back to toddling about having a nice time in my day."

But truly, the settling is as though all the unspeakably intricate, individual, and connectedness we have experienced begins a process of breaking down and becoming a  distilled essence.....of itself.

We become more essentially our selves.

It's so cool, when we sit up and realize what on earth is going on, really. Once we identify it.

 I was seeing a dear friend of mine today. And as I sat waiting to see her, I hung with her grand daughter, who lives with her, and who I've known since she was little. I was so happy to see her, all the more of her now at 13, and we hung out and talked and I asked her how things are and what it's like being 13 instead of 5 and did she remember and we laughed and she did this amazing job of describing to me what her life is like, and how she feels about it. And I just kind of sat in the glory of her very loved very bright very stable very embodied very intelligent 13 year old self.

And when we got to the end of hanging out, I told her "You know, just to me? It just gets easier from here on in. You just stay awake and keep your self aware, and you will just get to do more and more and make good choices and have those consequences and make your way. " And then I kissed her and hugged her as my friend came out, smiling, and told her to have a good time being in her life.

Now, my friend is I think 56. She knows. She knows so much. And she is a dear dear person to be close to. I said "That child? She is solid and iridescently beautiful and confident and thoughtful and her whole love of life just shines through her eyes into the world." And she said, "Yeah, isn't she wonderful?"

     

       She's still at an age , at least in her life, where noone has crushed so much knowing that often gets smashed and thwarted and limp and discarded into the disbelief pile. But she still has it, and I think she's going to hang onto it.

But for lots of us, ours got grabbed away or laughed at or we saw nary another who whispered that they too noticed and felt and 'knew, just knew' things for themselves. Which is why, as we get older and more 'settled', ( and I"m not talking perfection and easy and all in our lives) it begins coming round 

again.

And we wake up so many mornings with a gentle tiny new sense of things. Of what we know to be true for ourselves.

     We get surprised.

We stop caring what others think, right?

     

We begin realizing one by one things we have not forgiven ourselves for. Like so much crappy old junk we're lugging about. And we stop for a moment, and say "Wow. I have not forgiven myself for that. And that. Oh, and that! Geeze!" And then we just plain do it.

    That's what's so cool about getting older. Who cares? Rules? What rules? We just go right ahead and do stuff.

Like forgiving ourselves each time one of those useless old things comes up. 

Because living with the emotion....of regret...is a whole different thing. Than not forgiving ourselves. 

Regret weighs nothing. Regret obstructs nothing. It's simply a respectable feeling to have, and that's 

okay, regret.

And just happens to be one of those things we pass by, pick up, and tuck into our pocket, wandering along down our path of our growing into ourselves.

     We begin doing what we want, and relish the moments that are so deep and simple and rewarding, because along with them, living side by side, are new and old heartbreaks, varying types of very normal and really hard loneliness, often times pain, and a gradual loss of loved and liked ones. We know all that is coming down the road we are on, and we might as well acknowledge it and talk about it, if that helps, and deal with it. 

Yes, it's happening. Yes, here I am. Yes, who knows. Yes, we pray, help me not waste my precious time. Yes, help me feel great about who I am and the way I have lived my life. Please. And, thank you.

The other day I was relishing the website of artist and writer Nanette Vonnegut . And under her writing, she shares this self same process, put beautifully:

       "A few things have changed recently, though, that have blown the hinges off the closet door.  I am no child, I am crepe-necked and gray, which I find to be liberating beyond words. Though I feel healthy as a horse, I know death is breathing down my neck, which makes the writing feel pleasantly urgent. "

Yup. That's the knowing.

I love to celebrate what grows and becomes complex and solid and starts the process of harvest; of blossoming and the fruitfulness of my own life, as I face all the hard things too.

     Because we are full of all things, great and small. The grievously challenging, and the simply divine. And you know what? Yeah, you know we are.