On Beginnings

When we contemplate the miracle of embodied life, we begin to partner with our bodies in a kinder way. Sharon Salzburg

Usually, beginnings are thought of as filled with hope and promise. And this may be true. But it is also true that at the beginning of any project, quest, or trip is the lack of its fulfillment. All beginnings are a paradox. They are empty spaces waiting to be filled.  

We are never so deprived as at the beginning of any quest, and from deprivation comes spiritual wealth and spiritual power.

Because at every beginning, we are deprived of comfort, conclusion, and certainty. (The 3 - C's inoculate us from change.) 

In every sense of the word, quest; a blank canvas, sobriety, an empty notebook, a new recipe, chemo, a gym membership, a job, a piece of music, a meditation, a new relationship, another day in an old one. Every time we change direction, we are walking into a new direction, an unknown. Every unknown is even just for a moment, a deprivation of knowing the outcome. We deprive ourselves of that comfort of knowing. Even if what we know, what we are currently doing, is what we don't want, it is still more comfortable than the unknown.

This is the exact reason why it is so hard to change. For most of us, the comfort of what is currently is better than the discomfort of what has yet to be. More specifically, it is the ambiguity of not knowing.

This is why we think a person has to hit rock bottom before changing. It must need to get so undeniably bad that there is nothing left to do but change direction, try something new, try another tact. But this may not necessarily be true.          

My friend Will, an Episcopalian priest told me years ago that, "Spiritual power comes not from a position of earthly power but from a position of earthly deprivation and want and powerlessness." 

Maybe it is ambiguity that shows up for some of us as the harbinger or change. Ambiguity, which can feel like having no options or not knowing with any clarity where to turn, or powerlessness, is maybe more akin to an initiation into the unknown.

In my journal I wrote, I am massively in ambiguity, I am swimming in formlessness.

I told my husband yesterday that I felt like we have been rudderless for the last few years. “We need a five year plan,” is what I told him. We need to have a quest, everyone needs to have a quest.

It’s really that simple.