Spring is a time not only of rebirth, but also of revelation. It is during this season that the snow melts, exposing the previously-hidden Earth once more.
The other day I happened upon a poignant quote from Rebecca Parker. She says, "Revelation comes to those who are radically hospitable to what they do not know." Her sentiment, in and of itself, might strike us as a revelation all its own -- after all, how open (much less hospitable!) are most of us to the realm of the unknown?
If we're honest with ourselves, the answer is probably not as much as we imagine ourselves to be. We like what is familiar -- what's safe, what's understandable, what's predictable, what's quantifiable. What we rarely consider, though, is that certainty can be, paradoxically, the surest ticket to ignorance.
A lot of us go through at least a portion of life with an unconscious agenda that goes something like this: "I'm listening for/looking for what I already assume to be true because then I will remain comfortable and safe." And it makes good sense on some level, right? I mean, who wants to upset the status quo?
But the truth is that such an agenda is ultimately defeatist. After all, if we do anything in the spirit of what we already believe, we will undoubtedly find what we already know. It's kind of like taking a low-level class for credit in school because we don't want to do the work; initially it's great because we can coast and stay comfy, but ultimately we finish feeling like we've wasted our time and we didn't learn a thing.
Sometimes it seems as though all of our notions of "success" and "knowing" in the contemporary world emphasize "Expert Mind" (which is in stark contrast to the Buddhist concept of "Beginner's Mind," a state of receptivity and openness wherein one lays aside biases and preconceptions so that a different kind of wisdom might penetrate). Not only is this epidemic of "conventional mind" at a cost to the individual soul and psyche, but it is also the reason that our world is wildly and dangerously out of balance.
What this all comes down to is an utter lack of humility -- a fundamental inability to surrender to and accept a wholly different kind of knowing (or, to at least accept a state of being that might be more amenable to such knowing!). Let me be clear: the kind of wisdom that I'm talking about doesn't come from the mind, from the ego; it comes from someplace much deeper -- from the Heart, from the Soul, from the Higher Self.
Shifts in consciousness -- and that is truly what is called for here -- are not easy. They render us uncomfortable and therefore "unsafe." Caroline Myss says, "We are at the end of the age of reason...and we have never been a more unreasonable world." When a longstanding and pervasive paradigm is outmoded, it's time to make a change.
Clients come to me every day living microcosmic versions of the larger, planetary story: the old ways are not working and they want to revive the soul that's been suffocated. The journey is one into very foreign but ultimately much more expansive territory.
At the heart of what we all ache for (perhaps not consciously at first!) is awe -- the wonderment of being alive in the more ecstatic sense of the word. But the problem is that we're trying to move through the proverbial "eye of the needle" into mystical consciousness with all of our baggage -- with our old, familiar, conditioned patterns in tow. And it fundamentally doesn't work that way. In fact, it works the other way around. We'd rather take the "I'll believe it when I see it" route, but the Universe mandates otherwise: "When you believe it you'll see it." We don't get to play the game on our terms.
Yet again, expanding the potential for revelation involves tremendous surrender. But this is ultimately an opportunity to see more clearly -- to unearth what's been long buried or forgotten in the name of reclaiming our fertile soul soil.
This Spring, may you cultivate the grace of reverence so that your roots can grow deeper.
