The Journey of Curiosity

I had a dream nearly a week ago that a wise person in my life (who shall remain unnamed) told me to go back to my last blog post--that what I needed was in that blog.

I have had a challenging few weeks since that post and it has taken me almost a week to come back here and read it.  I think it was because I knew I needed the time to read the post and sit with it. I waited also because I wasn't entirely happy with the post and was a bit afraid to reread it.  I could anticipate wincing at the mistakes or silliness or whininess it might convey.  I couldn't remember for sure what I had written. What I was sure about is that it would leave me wincing at my foibles. But I sat here reading the post.  And I realized it is exactly what I have been needing and it is exactly what I've been struggling with over the last two weeks.  The fear of letting go. The fear of being vulnerable, really vulnerable.  Vulnerable in public. Vulnerable outside in the world. Vulnerable.  A word I wholeheartedly embrace and wholeheartedly fear.  Vulnerable. Keep writing it. Keep saying it.  Keep believing in its virtues. Vulnerable.  Be vulnerable.  Be brave and be vulnerable.

“The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.” 
― Pema Chödrön

Settling into late winter, I was expecting to be dragged down by kapha.  I was sure the heaviness would soon enter, but I keep waiting. And in that waiting and in my attempts to prevent kapha from entering, vata has been increasing and increasing. I could feel the vibrations of my body well above the ground. Anxiety--without mooring, fragmented, unkempt, unbounded.    

“A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us.” 
― Pema Chödrön, The Places that Scare You

I have come to this point where I'm tired of the anxiety. Tired of the fear taking over.  I need to embrace the journey of curiosity.  To find curiosity where there was fear.  Sitting with where there was running from.  Curiosity as a way to ease the struggle with looking directly at what scares so me.

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.” ― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.” 
― Pema Chödrön

Remembering that seems important right now.  Easing my anxiety will not be found in solutions to some current problem or tension.  I will find the ease in letting go and sitting with those tensions, understanding that I will fall apart and come together again and again and again. Me as exquisite kintsukoroi. Vulnerable. Be brave. Be vulnerable.  

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.” 
― Pema Chödrön

“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.” 
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

Quest(ions) and Curiosities

This juncture has been filled with (quest)ions and I struggled throughout to resist my immediate desire to find answers/solutions and, instead, actually hold them and treat them as curiosities. This basically sums up my entire juncture. And it only just became clear to me as I typed them out now. 

But throughout and even a little before the official start of the juncture, I faced (quest)ion after (quest)ion. Each seemed to be trying to get me to stay with the tension. Not try to resolve it. To take that journey of curiosity.  Whether it was in my tight hip, holding and knotting, or in my meditation where I’d find myself hesitating right at the moment I could feel myself move deeper, or in my attempts to immediately resolve any anxiety I felt as challenges in my relationship arose, the place of holding repeatedly presented itself to me.  It has been subtle, but my reactions quite strong, as the (quest)ions kept hitting, something new kept coming to the surface.  And it has been coming in various forms—through my body, my unconsciousness, my emotions. 

As juncture ends today and I settle into the late winter, I do know that I will keep working here. It is as though the juncture stirred up dust and debris hidden in the crevices that I have been digging into. It is all unsettled and transitioning before my eyes into something I can’t sweep back into the cracks. The juncture helped me to see that work. To see what is to come.