Water . Trust

The great sea has set me in motion.
Set me adrift,
And I move as a weed in the river.

The arch of sky
And mightiness of storms
Encompasses me,
And I am left
Trembling with joy.

~Eskimo song



I am the sea. I am the essence of water spirit. Within me moves great torrents, tumultuous waves, mounting to tsunami on occasion. Something in my spirit urges me into wildness, into ferocious, powerful madness, to rip up the trees and foundations and to turn the land to mud, to flush away all that ever was, all that could ever be washed away. Within me is the spirit of Shiva, the destroyer, the transformer, the fire of change, the spirit that burns away all but what is true. Within me is a wild, raging energy that is more powerful than anything I can imagine, and when it rips through this small human being-ness that I embody, day to day, I feel washed away, too. I feel my own foundations crumble and melt. And I am left in the spoilage of my own creation. Today has been such a day.

The power of water has swept through the Sacred Valley of Peru, and my brothers and sisters in Pisac, and in the surrounding villages and towns, have experienced a lot of damage and loss. The river has spilled its banks twice now, and homes have been washed away, roads and bridges have been destroyed, and there have been lives lost, both human and animal. Farm fields are damaged or destroyed, too, causing a lot of loss of food for the people who live there. The power of wild, raging water has affected the lives of thousands of people there. I am told that several women lost their lives as they were trying to move stones from the river, stones that were blocking the flow...

Trust. Today has shown me that I have a lot of work to do in my own life in order to fully embrace trust. The opposite of trust, it seems to me, is fear. Not distrust, but fear. If I am fully alive and present with what IS in this world, then I am embracing a state of trust, and walking in a practice of trust. With that comes a whole lot of acceptance, and a whole lot of surrender. If I'm gonna be able to trust anyone, I must be able to accept what comes fully, and surrender my own ideas and desires for life to be any different. This isn't new. I probably have said it a hundred times, and have probably thought it thousands more. In fact, after one particular Ayahuasca ceremony, I can clearly recall walking along the back road in Pisac with Daniel having this very conversation. The Medicine had shown me that trust was a choice. That even if in my very next breath someone could appear behind me and stab me to death with a knife, I would be given the opportunity to choose to trust life anyway. I get to choose whether I walk around in the world afraid of being hurt, afraid of suffering, or whether I walk around in the world in a state of openness and trust.

That choice has been easy for me in some respects. The part of me that is bright and loving and connected chooses trust freely. But that part isn't fully integrated into my being. There is a darker part of me that trusts nothing, no one. This part is wary of everything. It wonders why people don't hide bombs in paper bags on the road that will blow up when someone drives over them. It wonders if my gas stove is going to blow up. It wonders if the people I know best will beat me or kill me. It wonders if Iran will drop bombs on Washington, DC, and whether or not I will survive if that happens. It wonders if the glue that holds reality together will one day melt away, and all that I think I know and see and love will vanish completely.

But the truth is that all that I think I know and see and love *will* vanish completely. I will be betrayed by life over and over again. People will come into my life, and they will leave. Beautiful beings that I love with all my heart will die. I will give my heart over and over again, and sometimes it will be bruised and broken. The Buddhists tell it best - life is suffering. I find myself falling into despair when this becomes so clear to me. And I have spent the greater part of the last six months in deep despair. The bright and loving part of me just wants to move back into the freedom and joy of living from my heart, and trusting life once more. And part of me wants to at least *look* like I am going on with life as usual, loving and trusting and joyful. But there is something inauthentic about that, about wanting to pretend that I am not still filled with despair. And what I'm starting to realize is that it's possible to feel both at the same time. In this moment, I feel great sorrow and despair in my heart, and some low-grade fear about death and the unknown. There is still mourning in my heart, too, mourning a lot of loss, and a lot of change. But alongside these things is hope and lightness, the kind of trust that comes in the way the trees send out their buds before the final frost. A deep knowing that life *is* trust, and that spring will renew all that winter has crushed under the weight of so much ice.

What would it look like to practice trust in my daily life?

To feel the part of me that prickles and stirs and churns with uncertainty and fear, and to breathe into that with courage? To know that I am more than my mind, when the thoughts of a million and one reasons *not* to trust threaten to overwhelm me? To stand present with the inevitability of death, and choose to trust life anyway? Even more than these, to sit patiently with myself as doubt and fear fill my heart and body, and to trust myself completely? The last one is the hardest. Even harder than trusting other people - trusting myself.

Trusting myself.

When I sit here and feel into that possibility, it sure does bring up a lot of fear. I mean, if I trust myself, then I will have to really, fully take responsibility for my life. And while I feel like I choose that anyway, this touches a very deep place of personal responsibility within me. If I trust myself completely, then I will have to trust all my decisions. I will trust that all the things I get involved in are the ones that are best for me. I will trust that all the people I include in my life, all the relationships and friendships, are exactly what I need too. I will trust that my own inner compass will guide me in all that I am, and all that I do. Wait...I pretty much do that anyway...hmmm...

So, the problem appears when my mind takes me into doubt and blame. Doubt that my choices are the right ones. However, I am learning right now more than ever that there are no ultimately right or wrong choices... Hmmm...so, it seems like doubt may just be a relic from very old patterns within me. Blame is much sharper, and carries much more energy for me - and tends to be self-directed instead of aimed at others. If I truly do own responsibility for my whole life, and trust the universe and myself that all is exactly as it should be, then the only person I can blame when things fall apart is myself. Again, this seems like very, very old stuff. Deep inside of myself, I know that there is no one to blame for the suffering and pain of life. I don't blame you, or the government, or the church, or even God. But there is some part of me that still blames myself. This still carries a lot of heat for me, blaming myself for things. "You fucked it up completely..." Familiar words in my mind. (sigh)

Forgiveness, then...I must forgive myself for not being perfect. For not having all the "right" answers. For not being able to be all things to all people. For not being able to save the whole world with no exceptions. For not being able to endure more pain and suffering without crumbling. For having blame and doubt. For making a thousand thousand mistakes. For not being stronger. For not being enlightened enough. For not being able to save my little kitty from the waiting arms of death. For not being able to reach out to Ed one more time, hoping that maybe I could help somehow. For not being able to tell Kenny how much I loved him. For not being able to save my parents from sickness and suffering, and for not being able to talk to them about it right now. For not being a more compassionate listener. For being afraid that the world is going to crumble in any moment from underneath my feet, and that I will be left falling falling free falling... As I write this, I am awash in sadness. Can I really forgive myself for these things? Can I really hold my heart in my hands with gentleness and love, and know that I am really doing the very best that I can?

(silence)

Words like trust and forgiveness are starting to mean something completely new to me. And in this moment, I am moved by the power of life as my teacher.