Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Yes, it's here at last, the fall. I seem to trick myself every year into believing that summer is the very best season, and each year the fall effortlessly surpasses her competitor. I am taken by the rich array of colors in the autumnal palette, fiery and passionate, like a triumphant Joan of Arc, singing her last moments of life.
Change can be dramatic and unsettling. It can also reveal beauty that was previously unknown, or unseen, like the crisp, white stars that seem to emerge, once the sky has darkened enough.
Transition is afoot in my story as well, somehow surprising me, even though the clues have been there all along. Like the stars, I couldn't see or didn't recognize these cues until the conditions revealed what was already here.
Transitions can be like debris in the stream, awkward sticks or moss balls, that won't be mobilized until there are enough tears to wash them along. Then they get trapped again and only my weeping will ferry them to their next locale. Sometimes I worry when I cry, afraid that something is really wrong, obviously, because I'm crying. But I do know better, that my body and psyche are trying to discharge and this watery movement is one of the best vehicles for letting go.
So I am looking for a new home now.
I am venturing out on my own, with the unbelievably graceful blessing from my partner.
He is such a lovely person, and the love we share has its own life, we cannot extinguish it. It just needs a new container, kind of like those hermit crabs I was invoking in my last newsletter.
The story of this love will go on, in both of us and all of our community,
and it will transform and be reborn in many forms, many yet unknown.
So, beloved community, you are our witnesses, as we untie the knot and listen for the ways to stay connected.
We are still kind and loving, affectionate and tender.
We don't have to stagnate in the swamps of loss and despair, but we are sometimes trudging those murky waters when we have to, as this separation requires us to do.
All of this leads me to some requests! Can you challenge your ideas about change, namely separating partnerships, and invite uplifting images, like two butterflies emerging from one cocoon, or a stream diverging into two tributaries?
Your thoughts do have power, and we need to be buoyed up as our heavy hearts have the tendency to sink us down to the bottom of the pond.
Rather than lamenting what is lost, like the radiant raspberries of summer, we can decide that this situation is exactly what was needed.
"It is just as if we looked around to find out what would be the greatest wealth that we could possibly possess in order to lead to a decent, good, completely fulfilling, energetic, inspired life, and found it right here."
—Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving Kindness
My second request is more practical: I need a new home! I recognize that most of my wealth is in my relationships and my web of connections. I am reaching out to you, my web, my beloved community, because I know this is how the best relationships come ~ through trusted friends, family, colleagues, neighbors and clients.
Please put your ear to your web and thereby extend my message:
I am in search of a two-bedroom home to rent, or a long-term house sitting gig, for a year or two (until interest rates relax a bit more). My income is modest, so the rent will need to be a match for this.
You could make a delightful difference in this world!
"The Net of Indra is a profound and subtle metaphor for the structure of reality. Imagine a vast net; at each crossing point there is a jewel; each jewel is perfectly clear and reflects all the other jewels in the net, the way two mirrors placed opposite each other will reflect an image ad infinitum.
The jewel in this metaphor stands for an individual being, or an individual consciousness. Every jewel is intimately connected with all other jewels in the universe, and a change in one jewel means a change, however slight, in every other jewel."
—Stephen Mitchell, The Enlightened Mind