Navigating Intensity

Blooming in Faith every Morning

There is an intensity we are all feeling isn’t there?

Photo by Ryan Loughlin on Unsplash

We witness it in the world around - chaos, uncertainty, waking up to something shocking every day, while we attempt to manage, control and plan our lives.

For those of us who are able to get quiet enough to witness our inner world, we may find great intensity there as well.

Over the last few centuries, the Human family got really practiced at managing the world (in the view of some, at least).

We plan our cities, our travels and our lives.

We plan our roads, our banking and schooling.

We practice crisis and conflict management when things don’t go according to our plan.

All the while, our wilderness nature - within and around - watches us as we try and try again to control that which can never be controlled.

One of the reasons I see for this intensity, is that our deeply held core beliefs are being revealed.

If we held the belief that Humans are superior to Nature…

That civilization and progress means the destruction the soul and the natural world…

That my will is superior to the will of the Earth, the Divine and the Cosmos, or even your personal will.

Then these will be colourful times indeed.

My medicine in these times is that of Faith.

Naturally, I’ve also had to redefine it over the years.

I thought Faith was about believing in the good/ preferred or pleasurable outcome, because I am good and therefore good things will happen to me.

There were two problems with this definition, this belief I held, as I found out in my movement through this.

1.     Faith has nothing to do with outcomes. And actually, the attachment to an ‘ideal’ outcome, in my experience actually comes in the way of true faith.

2.     The second, is this idea of ‘good’, being ‘opposite of bad’. These are cultural and societal constructs and while they help guide us at times, it gets unsatisfying and frustrating as well.

The truth is, whether we like it or not our worlds are changing. Whether you think things are getting better or worse, is more about how much love, acceptance and vulnerability you allow into and out of your being. That colours perception.

Viewed through the lens of trauma, pain, victimhood and long suffering, the world looks like it is a horrid place and imminently getting worse. People start to look like greedy, pathetic, zombified idiots sauntering through the streets of hell.

Ojibwe author, Richard Wagamese in his manuscript, One Drum, shares stories from his journey of Reclamation, re-defined Faith as:

Find

An

Insight

That

Heals

Maybe that insight is a change in how you view yourself, or your abilities. 

Maybe it is an experience of kindness or generosity from someone, when you least expected it.

Maybe it is an experience of cosmic love.

What heals us, makes us whole.

Or more accurately, shows us that we were always whole and now we live with that realization. Indeed we become our wholeness and regardless of what occurs in the world, we practice walking, breathing and moving that Whole Self everywhere we go. 

To me, this is the power of Faith.

Maybe a religious or spiritual practice affords you your own sovereign power in Faith.
For me, it is found in tender quiet moments.

Those moments when we allow the highest vibration of human consciousness available right now - absolute surrender.

Do you have those moments where you get a brilliant idea in the shower?

Or receive clarity on a problem while staring out the window of a busy train in rush hour?

Or you awaken in the middle of the night with amazing insight, only to completely forget it in the morning?

To me, those are the momentary experiences of absolute surrender. Where our mind has surrendered itself to our heart, our soul, our creation spirit and our place of mystery within, all at once.

It comes light lighting, and then our minds get busy in trying to catch or take that inspiration. Remember it and tell it to someone, or do something with it.
This moves us out of surrender and into ‘doing-mode’. And we find we can’t recall the perfection with which it came.

But that is okay.

Because I think, this is part of what the intensity is, that we are experiencing right now.

We are learning to let go of our taking-controlling-and-planning nature and we are upgrading the parts of our human Self that can surf the waves of creation, with full trust.
Have you ever seen a surfer balance on large waves?

Surfers, are an image of Mastery. Fully present in the moment, they wait and watch for their wave. They take risks, and the good ones do so honouring their limits. They ride the waves in trust, and when then fall, they swim. They rise again with the next wave.

This uncertainty we experience, is oceanic – massive and unpredictable.

We are learning Mastery of the uncertain, not because we can future-proof our lives and plan for it, but simply because we are coming to love the space from which all things birth.
‘For the love of the surf…’ if you please.

We are moving from the desperate need to plan for the future, to really truly living our present, because we realize that it is only in the now present moment where we can choose anything at all. And when we take care of our present, the future has a way of working out.

We are learning to trust more and deepen our faith in a way that beautifully supports our dreams, our efforts and our actions without the burdens of attachments.

We are learning to free ourselves from our past ourselves.  We are learning presence, peace and power in a very different way, never before experienced by the human family. 

None of us are entirely good at this.

We are all wobbling through this Universal surfing lesson, some more than others.

But it is in our wobbling, that we are building the muscles of our emotional, physical, spiritual, psychic, soul, etheric and relational bodies.

Some of us, like first time gym-goers, painfully complain about the soreness and aches in their muscles. They may not return for many moons too troubled by the pain.

Others, keep at it with varying degrees of regularity. 

In either scenario, looking at someone else working out, may lead to harsh comparison and judgement. We may sink into distraction or depression or ego-mind.

So, we return home to ourselves repeatedly, knowing that this is also a practice.

I leave you now with the words of Richard Wagamese, once again.
Because in these intense times, we could all use a little extra:

Finding

An

Insight

That

Heals