The Best that Can Happen to You: the Freshness of New Beginnings
From the vantage point you are at, you may, no offense, be quite clueless about what the best is that can happen to you. We all hold onto concepts that appeal to the default states of our mind. We do not let go of those concepts, because in some chapters of the past they made sense to us, helped us get something that we were after, maybe soothed a pain, helped us over some deprivation, a tough lesson, a weakness, or the worry that we don’t have what it takes to overcome our challenges.
It is through exposure to a very different mindset that we can allow other information to enter and accept that there are other ways to view the situation we are in, acquire a more than a neutral perception (for example, the blessings we who read this piece have in comparison to the rest of the world with no access to the internet and whose daily struggle is survival — those are real blessings and a neutral perception of the human experience), more to the point, a helpful and strengthening perception from which we can apply ourselves in a fresh way and dare to create the environment that will heal us and the lives of those we care about and come in contact with.
The exposure to a different mindset may not even require a lot of listening to wise people, or a lot of reading about people who have mastered seemingly insurmountable problems and beaten the odds; the exposure to a different mindset can happen through silence, by becoming still, and by lingering in a high-vibrational environment. And what could better describe a high-vibrational environment than silence?
In silence, there is space where thought, judgement, self-recrimination, self-pity, anxiety, anger, the demand for justice or idealized scenarios, often recycled but never solved complaints, triggers and personal shortcomings can pass through, to be witnessed, and a fresh and helpful perception can emerge.
A fresh and helpful perception could be: “Remove yourself from harm this week.” “Give up… […] Or: “You have made it this far, you will have the resources to go on further, be open to …. […].. Or: “Go this way… Knock on this door.”
Or it is the call to self-care, a specific thing you can do in the coming week to renew yourself, feel better in your skin, be more organized in your time management.
Sometimes it can be the message to help another person, make someone’s day, bring more light to their lot, remind them of their competence to meet life, to uplift and inspire, to attract or instill contentment, goodness, abundance.
Quite often it is a pointer to stop procrastinating and bring order to your finances, to your consumption, to your work place, or to your own four walls.
Pay attention to the direction silence offers you and try that.
Maybe it won’t make sense to your thinking. Thinking can be like a journey through a labyrinth; while silence can lift you out of that labyrinth onto a plane above your thoughts that is more aligned with life and the lessons you can draw from life and the readiness to take ownership of what you are trying to repair or improve.
A very helpful image of what an advanced and blossoming human being is is a water retention landscape that grows food, herbs, all kinds of botanical medicine, trees, flowers, a profusion of green life, while its riverbeds transport clean water to its plants, animals and humans…
A water retention landscape holds its water on site, it moisturizes the soil, it hydrates its residents, it brings rain back through evaporation. Everyone living near it feels blessed and at ease and can think well into the future, trusting that the most basic prosperity — the fertility of the soil and the health of the water — can be relied on. Should natural disasters happen, it can recover fast, because both the structures and the skills are there to restore it and to fortify it, so it will weather the next turbulence and provide more protection than ever before, and continue. A water retention landscape offers a home with friendly comforts in which people can think about their next projects, about what to grow the following season in order to feel even more satisfied, and a home to animals that offers plenty of food and playgrounds where turmoil is not a norm.
Like a water retention landscape, an evolved and awakened human being offers safety, a reduction of stress to her / his community, many occasions to discover purpose and pleasure, the optimal proportions of activity and rest, reasons for gratitude and lightheartedness, the ability to maximize all resources towards thriving, and the romance of living a fulfilled life.
Also, our body is mostly water, so the mind can draw from the similarity between a water body that is useful to life and very beautiful to live in and a human water body that is wonderful to have near us who acts like a muse and an incentive to cultivate our best traits too.
The image of a water retention landscape may appeal to a feminine person more. Those in the masculine mode can use the image too and emphasize the activity in it, since a water retention landscape is built by work and know-how, thoughtfulness and timing, therefore, the archetype of the builder of such a treasure is a very useful image.
Water is without gender, though. It draws all life to itself. So all men and women who feel an affinity for water are welcome and needed in this time.
Coming back to the beginning, the perception of our situation could be random, coloured by mood, or by the expectations of others and society, and silence could reveal to you that those expectations are far from wholesome and benign and will not stand the test of time, that your moods pass as fast as the clouds in the sky, that even in the chaos of events, meaning and order can be found — by taking initiative, cleaning up what needs cleaning up, and by growing into a holistic perception of personal power.
A lot of details in your life are in your power. You can influence your house and your working environment. You can try an approach noone has tried before. There are many social situations where you can offer your freshness and support.
In fact, our world thirsts for skillfulness and kindness. It wants more than an analysis of problems or the exact names for the seemingly neverending pathologies we are participating in. It cries for stillness, mindfulness, and a reorientation towards solutions: the show of limits we need to live with (we are on a finite planet, we are given a limited life span, we live in contained dwellings, and so on…) and the show of how we can make the best of our selves, of our service, of our manifestations, and of the manifest reality that we share with others, infused with the renewable, juicy, sweet wisdom that rises from the affection for life and long and deep looking.
“Cease seeing with the mind, and see with the vital spirit.” Chuang Tzu
Photo by author, mid July 2019
