reflections from the interior
  • home
  • blog
  • reflections
  • poems
  • announcements
  • books & cards , etc.
  • contact me

letting go

10/30/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
In the fall, we are cycling down into hibernation and repose.
Some things, like the vibrant garden and the flowers and leaves appear to die or at least
change dramatically.  Every life form experiences letting go, each in its own way.
​For us humans, each change can bring us deeper into reflection upon our own seasons of letting go.
Our lives might be understood as a continuous process of letting go. From the moment of birth to our final breath, we let go of the familiar; the immediacy that provides meaning and definition. We give up crawling in order to walk. We lose our first baby tooth, outgrow our favorite dress or shoes, say farewell to a best friend. Later we leave school for employment, change jobs and hair styles, let go of relationships, move to a different house, replace old beliefs with new understandings. 

Some of our letting go experiences may seem trivial in retrospect or in comparison to momentous ones or to those times of letting go when we really didn't want to but had to. Every letting go experience remains in memory and can resurface with emotional intensity with just the slightest trigger. Sometimes letting go is replete with anxiety or guilt or shame or fear. Even when we know that letting go is the best action to take, we may second guess ourselves and be plagued by regret. We are shaped by our choices at every juncture of our journey. 

Letting go of outgrown, outworn, no longer useful, or harmful habits, people, jobs, and locations that need to be released can give us a sense of relief, as if a huge weight has been lifted.  Yet even that kind of letting go carries with it elements of uncertainty; there's an emotional thread that binds us still. There is an ego attachment, a sense of self importance - I got rid of it! The letting go is not clean and we will return to relearn and redo and redeem. And repeat; maybe in a different form but the same content.

We can let go in a higher way but the journey is long and twisting and the outcome cannot be anticipated. We must be willing to withdraw from all that we know to live with our shadow side. We will be required to honestly question all of our reasons for choosing. We will have nothing but our own still small voice to guide us. We need to give ourselves generous amounts of time for reflection until our clarity is unshakeable and we are certain that we have completed all that was set before us in the best way possible. Only then do we receive the hidden gifts of letting go: a sense of unlimited spaciousness and the blessing of true authenticity. We let go and receive the fullness of light! 

                                              O    O    O    O    O    O    O    O

offspring

each one knows his own name
and the names of all the neighbors
together they endured everything
that time presented them
on cool and balmy days of leisure, 
through blistering heat and drought
that hardened them for adversity.

sometimes late spring blizzards 
took the smaller weaker ones
the others held together, carried on
till softer days returned 
with endless joys of summer,
cool crispness of lazy autumn.
 
the season of their waning days came
as they knew it would 
and though their time grew short
they aged into a brilliance 
unforseen in springtime,
a glorious explosion of color echoing 
through familiar neigborhoods

till one by one
they loosed their tenuous hold on life
floated gently then joined again together 
weaving an eternal quilt upon
their mother's breast 

- pab 2016 -
Picture
2 Comments

    Archives

    March 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    December 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly