This month I have been participating in a 21-day “Spiritual Cleanse” through the Awakening Women Institute. What’s happening during this time of paring down and emptying is that I am re-finding not simply my center, but the center – a place that feels formless and much larger than myself. It’s almost as if I’ve been swallowed up into some kind of womb and I’m waiting to be reborn. 

 

So, in essence, the shift is this: it’s no longer about us birthing; it’s about us being birthed. That’s a huge re-frame. All of a sudden the old paradigm is turned on its head.

 

Perhaps you, too, feel as though you’re living in a fertile void right now.  My experience of this space is that it has an almost timeless quality to it – the past is gone, and the future is not yet here.  But it’s about something more than being “in the moment,” because even “the moment” somehow ceases to exist. It, too, has been swallowed up.

 

It doesn’t matter whether you resonate perfectly with my sharing or not. What’s relevant is that this period is actually a gateway of magnanimous proportions. Right now we are being “held” (which is vastly different from being “held back”), and it’s important not to mistake a lack of quantifiable forward movement in the external world for stagnation. 

 

What we’re currently experiencing is intense integration. And integration has more of a yin quality to it than most of us are comfortable with (think Hexagram #2 if you consult the I Ching!). In any case, we live in a pretty yang world, so this territory can take some getting used to. It is tremendously fecund space, but we have to “learn to stay,” as Pema Chodron might say.

 

A couple of years ago I attended a talk by writer and Buddhist teacher Susan Piver at the local Shambhala Center. Susan was discussing relationships, but, for the purposes of this conversation, the topic could have been anything. Anyway, afterwards we got to talking about one of her four premises which was this: discomfort isn’t necessarily a sign that something is wrong. In fact, it is very often just the opposite.

 

Because I teach yoga, Susan appealed to me with an analogy. “Ashley,” she said, “Think of it like this. If you’re teaching a yoga class and a student is having trouble in pigeon because she has tight hips, you’re not going to rush over and go, ‘Oops, sorry. Wrong pose for you. We’ll get you something different.’ You’re going to help her learn to be there -- to bump up against her edge. Because that’s where the transformation happens.”

 

Right now, most of us are up against an edge of some sort. And many of us are resisting it with vehement force. Perhaps we assume we know better how the journey is supposed to unfurl. Or perhaps we’re just wildly uncomfortable. No matter.

 

In this space it’s really important to remember that we’re not necessarily “in the wrong pose” just because it might feel excruciating.

 

See if you can “learn to stay” in this fertile void. Keep in mind that true knowing is passive. Granted, it may ultimately inspire assertive action, but in its organic state, it is receptive. We can’t manipulate or manufacture Truth. It comes unbidden, when we’re at ease, when we’ve dropped evaluative measures and expectations, when we’ve surrendered calculation and cleverness, when we’ve worn out the muscles of resistance.

 

My advice: cultivate openness over deliberation at this time. Let there be a question where perhaps there wasn’t one before. And in that space, allow yourself to ultimately get worked by the alchemy of the process.