Saturday, July 2, 2016

a lesson in lessons

and i hope you find
more than just yourself.
i hope you find
the strength
not to hurt the people
who love you.
i hope you find 
a thousand miracles
hidden in the soft rain
and i hope you find art,
in all the people
you deserve to love.
                                               r.m. drake

























Everything is a lesson. We are not always ready to learn.

We think we are. So we go seeking, asking, half assed listening to only what we want to hear or think we need to know. We put unreasonable expectations on ourselves to be at a particular place by a particular time and so exist at the mercy of place and time--stuck and feeling as if it is running out. You aren't. And it isn't.

Every single moment, as noticeably catalytic or necessarily subtle, seemingly, even, stagnant, hosts a lesson. Lessons are woven intricately into all of our doings and it takes time spent patiently unravelling them, deciphering their message from the coded repetition of our patterns and habits and recurring sequences of events, before we can understand them with and implement them into our being. Look at the first sentence of this paragraph: full of commas; perforated by pausing meant to implement another similar, connected idea or strain that contributes to the entirety of the message. Excessive perhaps, but indicative of how a lesson is not always immediate, but, how as the sentence to follow relays, needs to be pulled from the pauses and collected from what seems to be a constant relearning; to be siphoned from the bigger picture that we have created, so that the truth might reveal itself in its grandeur.

So that the real lesson, not the one that we are seeking the answer to, can be learned.

We learn what we need to as we need to, not what we want to when we want to.

We have epiphanies not because of some random dawning of understanding, but because of a collection of hints and happenings and molecularly sized lessons climaxing into a knowing. An aha. An I get it. Sometimes a duh. Most of the time, a sweet reprieve from thinking and a softening ohh, that's why, and here I am, exactly where I need to be and all of what caused confusion or what played out as an annoying continuation of the same sequence of learning becomes essential, relevant, and clear in this moment. As a lesson for the next.

We are never done learning, we are in a constant receiving of bits and pieces of understanding so that bit by bit and piece by piece we become more whole, or at least more connected to what is whole. And the seeking lessens as we learn the ultimate lesson: listen.

Listen. Notice synchronicities, divine timing, dream messages and humans only meant to be messengers and nothing more--the ones that come and go and leave you thinking and feeling on a level untouched by those you are meant to learn more slowly with and from. Gather the hints from what resonates, from what causes you to react. Believe that seeds are being planted always and that only will they begin to flourish when the soil of our beings is fecund; when we are most fertile, ripe for gestation and producing. Remember that you, like and as nature, are subject to cycles, and that often we re-learn before we really learn. And often what is learned is not what we expected. And often what we expect is what keeps us from learning--what we feel we need to know strangles our knowing, is too loud for the intimate listening required to really learn.

The need to know in and of itself is distracting enough without the need to know where and when--but the need to know why here, why now, when the lessons do settle in--those questions are irrelevant. Really, none of it matters except that you did learn. And then, most importantly, how you use that information. How you take ownership of what you are going to do with that knowing.

That was something I learned from the students here--they embodied ownership; they all came as they are, uniquely expressive, perceptive, human. They came with a stronghold on their own journey, taking full responsibility for what they would get out of this--what they were after, willing to receive, abundant in offering. Yet because I was not looking for that particular message, I didn't know that was what I had received as a catalyst for necessary personal learnings until their teacher vocalized it two nights ago, and I saw so clearly in my own doings that I had learned that from them. And then, in the knowing, I could see so clearly how their energy had permeated, given me the strength to shine a light on some shadows in a way I hadn't anticipated. And really a lot of dangling strings tied together in a remarkably strong knot and I feel now each inexplicable experience and lesson tethered to my being. Anchored in self. In knowing.

I could not have learned what I learned here if I wasn't ready for it. I would not have had the circumstantial awareness to open to this perspective, this angle, this shedding of light on this shadow that isn't so dark after all. Could not have attracted a more necessary collection of humans to be seen by and in, could not have said goodbye to a heartbreak I didn't know could exist again, could not have aligned in this way, in this relationship with myself until I was strong enough to. This experience is just a bit piece itself of the entirety of our life experience: we learn what we have come here to learn; we come as we are and the lessons come as they will. Our growth occurs as part of our contract to the divine for this go around at life--whether you believe this is a one chance opportunity or an infinite collecting of lessons to weave over many lifetimes, we are here to know what we are meant to as we are meant to, and then we are meant to share.

Share who you are, be revealed to yourself as your are to others, honour the space you are meant to hold, with faith, with kindness, alive and learning. Connect, spread love. Whether it is through pancake tricks, unscripted honesty, respectful inquisition or just coming as you are, in the smallest and most immense lessons all of our lives are being changed; at once you may be learning and revealing a lesson to someone else.

It's pouring rain again as I write this, just as it was that post on those first days of being here. Only this time the filters are less. The sureness is more rich. A truer light unwavering through the shadows.

Thank you everyone who has allowed me to teach them, allowed me to learn, taught me everything.

xx