Know.

What is it to truly Know?

(Image by @moonchildtarot)

 

What is really Known? 

The brain processes the data from every momentary interaction inside and outside. It is processed using the information already received in the past. Our understanding of the world that was shaped the second we emerged from our mother’s womb is the very same filter used to process the information coming in today.

How can you be so certain? Perhaps it is because you have lived in alignment with the understanding that was shaped during those early years. With each experience, you look for the path that is most affirming of these inner Knowings. The inner Knowings that feel intuitive because they are deeply wired into your subconscious. These are the inner Knowings that keep you safe. Why would you question them? Afterall, they have gotten you here. As you sift through life playing out the script you just knew would happen, you witness being “tested” in ways that seem new, but are familiar in essence to the ones you experienced as your smallest and most vulnerable self. What is really Known? As you push love away and affirm your independence, you feel soothed because you are safe. You knew you could protect yourself because you did when you were small. What is Known is not the situation, but rather the reminder to yourself that you are safe. You are. 

As I sit silently journaling in the cafe, I overhear an older man exhaling his feelings openly to his mate. He stoops his head and lets his shoulders down while he states “the system is wearing me down”. I witnessed his vulnerability and softness. From this place, he opens to love and support from his humble friend. My heart softens feeling his humility, too. 

Swiftly, my mind brings me back to how the system wore us down. But which system? The system of government that is controlling the way we live our lives and blocking us from living as human beings (no socializing, no closeness, no joyous events), or is it the system that raised our parents into thinking that love and connection were prioritized underneath wealth, status, and control. Perhaps this system insidiously wore us down through the generational sanding away of real protection. The kind of sanding and sculpting that has metastasized in the way we look. It is apparent in the way women are encouraged to scrape away their real beauty and replace natural rawness with dermal fillers, implants, and injections. Perhaps now, the current squeeze of the systems that oppress our humanness have ripened us to defeat. 

 

Most days, I forget the day, the month, and the season. I Know it is cold, rainy, and dark. Regardless, I Know there is change. I Know the pain of those I speak to. I Know the heaviness and exhaustion, even hopelessness that waxes and wanes in all lives. I Know that hope comes in the form of seeking change (relationships, homes, jobs), and that change brings distraction, which provides a momentary reprieve before it leaves us even more isolated than before. 

This societal contraction has taken some of us. The depth of hopelessness has maximized acuity in some deeply feeling ones, or ones whose hearts did not have the reprieve available in the right moment. For those, may you carry on in peace Knowing you are loved and missed. May you be rebirthed in to a life where you Know true love and resilience. 

Others have turned to a goal, commitment, or task. In the same way the addict relies on a drug or pattern to find this reprieve, some have adopted a project or task. For these hopeful souls, I pray this helps. I also pray your heart doesn’t become so hardened and your mind so focussed that when it’s time to soften, you remain contracted. Your pyramid of ice must melt. When you can, let yourself be honoured. Find love and let it flow from you and to you. Failure to do this will result in the same contraction that kept you in the very place that blocked you from experiencing it in the first place. Find that small part of you. Find your heart and hold it in your warm and gentle palms until it melts fully and completely. 

Similar to the way flowers open willingly when fully basking in sunlight. When our hearts remain contracted and icy, they need the light of the sun to embrace them over time. A glimpse of sun will not unfurl all petals and a glimpse of safety will not allow the heart to thaw. 

Where does the sunlight come from when the cold season is setting in?

Perhaps what is most challenging is that during this time, even the most open hearts have closed. What we assume we Know is determined by our closed hearts. What we see is validated by our biased history. What we feel is determined by our reopened wounds. 

If what you Know is less than ideal, or perhaps even destructive to your future, can you change it? 

One may try to do this through control. Controlling their thoughts, their actions, and their feelings. The pain in their heart dissipates and they become unshakeable. The dangers of this are only apparent over time. When the Divine Mother once again offers the opportunity to enter the most loving path (because she will), following it will require all of the barbed wire to be severed. It requires the ice to remain thawed. It requires those wounds to be opened to air. It will require tolerance of feeling raw, perhaps even bothered or irritated. It is important to take note of this, so we don’t confuse vulnerability for danger. The way one can succeed on this path is to recognize the tenderness present and the mechanisms of “Knowing” that block one from being. The ways one turns to live their mind, rather than their life. The way one fastens themselves to logic, rather than embracing the Unknown messiness that could come if they soften into the path of love. Control, then, is turning to the traumatized child inside you and reminding yourself that you Know what threats are present, so that those wounds can be protected. 

What are the other options? 

The challenge with living in love is that it requires accepting that one does not simply Know. One must upfront agree that their Knowing is in itself getting in the way of their growth. Blindspots must be honoured and followed and explored. Patterns must be lovingly dissected and tended to. The path of love is a path of constant forgiveness. It is the path of accepting that wounds will be touched and irritated and pressed. When this happens, it is important to look inside and take the time and space needed to heal, rather than looking outside with destruction and blame. Rather than distancing ourselves from love outside, we must call love inside and remind ourselves that this uncertainty is part of the process. We must soften our shoulders and stoop toward our efforts as if touching the feet of our challenges with honour and thankfulness. We must exhale the remainder of our depletion to a mate and soften in to the openness for love to enter. Once love enters, we can begin to heal. From here, we thaw collectively. Then, we recreate our Knowing. 

May you be well and continuously finding your way back to the path of love. Perhaps it is more beautiful than you Know.