Simply Begin Again
A thousand times the waves will come and a thousand times you must say: Not Today!
My life is my teacher.
Just Be Like This Today: “Today I am simply beginning again”
This is a daily invitation to grant yourself permission to drop all your other nagging ‘Musts’ and ‘Shoulds’ about self-improvement, personal development and living a virtuous life. Just enjoy this one cup of Living Wisdom, just choose this one thing and sit with it today.
You are discovering more and more, that all the trials and ordeals of your life are designed to teach you something, not always an object lesson as such, those too, but more so, the reality of the road and the necessary constitution you have to develop and the necessary stance you have to adopt that belongs with the version of yourself you are trying to inhabit. The way forward is not shut, it is simply asking you to own all the things demanded by the rigours of the road you are trying to follow from here, the way through to the centre, and from there, the real ascent.
The hardship of the journey is exactly matched to the value of the prize and the greatness of the soul who dares the way.
Your biggest challenge is that you keep forgetting this perspective, being so compelled to believe the signals of alarm and distress coming from the world and from the un-awakened body.
The real job, is not to ignore the body and to train the mind to an indifferent stillness; it is to pay close attention to the body, because your precious faithful body is the most honest and loyal servant which you have not yet learned the skill required to provide the necessary leadership for.
We all have wounds that we carry. We all have malaises that dog our shadows, feelings of shame, inadequacy, and stuckness. We all have forms of strife that pick at the stitches and seams of our relationships, most especially the relationship with our selves: The soft animal of the body, the innocent dreamer of the child, the cautious protector in us and the voice of fairness that wants us to be free in the world.
Purpose is how you belong in the world and to your life. And being valued, being seen and appreciated for what you appreciate most about yourself is how you feel connected with that purpose.
The real trick is to invest the lion’s share of your energy and attention, not for what seeks to unmake you—the silence from the gallery, the old stories of inadequacy—but rather on how resilient you are in holding together and mending, and the blessing of your life for making you so.
There is a deep and profound Dream trying to emerge and manifest itself through you, a voice trying to be heard around the small sense of story you are trapped in, your paradigms of scarcity, of fear: attributing more power to the wounds, illnesses and manners of strife which cast dark shadows over your days than you do in the capacity of your body and mind to heal and mend, and the remarkable miracle of renewal which extends to everything that belongs to nature, including you.
Things need to fall apart sometimes before they can fall back together in better ways. Destruction and creation do not happen in succession, creation is happening while the destruction is taking place.
The true gold of life is not found in success. It is hidden deep within the heart of self-discovery and the entrance to that mine of wonders is struggle and adventure. This is the alchemy of the soul, and the crucible is right here in the heart of this moment, the pain must be transmuted into understanding, and what is in shadow must be led gently, into the light. That is the work you came here to do. Everything else is a small story; a fiction told to you by people who did not know themselves and did not know how to find their true voice.
You did not come this far, to only come this far. Every wave you ride, becomes a wave you make.
NOT TODAY
Life throws wave after wave of ordeal at us.
The difference between an ordeal and a trial is not the circumstance, it is how we choose to face it.
They say, only a fool turns their back on the sea, for it is relentless, capricious and, unpredictable. But when you are adrift in the open water of life, no matter which bright horizon you aim to face, your back is always to the ocean, and you can be caught unawares from every which way, including below.
All we have, all we have is Love and Defiance. It will not be enough forever. But it is enough for today. That stance is what makes of the ordeal a trial. You get to choose your stance, you get to say: “Not today!”
And every trial that life throws at you, every wave you ride, becomes a wave you make.
You are who you repeatedly Choose to be. You are also a relentless wave. This is not your first rodeo. This will not be your last. Not yet.
“Not today. Today, I am swimming. Today I choose Love and I choose Life. I will face the trial and I will not be timid or undone.”
You did not come this far to have only come this far. There is a shore out there.
Somewhere even the endlessness ends. Somewhere the shoreline is being made anew in every moment and a will no greater than yours is riding like foam to spill onto a beach that is itself what has become of once eternal mountains.
When you reach there, you learn it was the relentlessness, the relentless fear of being undone that drove you all that way, on and on and impossibly on, just so long as you kept saying: “Not today!”
You are either riding the waves, being tossed by the waves or you are perhaps making the waves. Either way, there will be waves.
Be relentless in your Choosing.
Make for shore.
If you must be undone, be undone at the infinite shoreline, that is where Tomorrow begins, that is the event horizon beyond this small recurring moment, beyond the threat of new ordeals, where it is right to finally be undone so that we can become something more - at the place where new trials await; It is worth defying even the endless heaving of the entire ocean, for this.
A thousand times the waves will come and a thousand times you must say:
“Not today! I am destined for Tomorrow.”
Not Today, by Rocco Jarman from the Collection Keeper of the Flame.
Tell me your reflections on this in the comments section. Tell me of your dream, of your journey towards the shore and I will tell you mine.
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Paradigms of scarcity and fear really called me out. Incredible work as always. From all your work, I am really working on creating space between actions and reactions so I am not creating as many of my own waves to have to face. And for the waves I will face, to be wiser and make space for how I choose to face them.