Twiggies

“… This story invites us to honor each obstacle as something flowing in its own right in the Universal stream, to see ourselves and the obstacle as two limbs of the same tree drifting in the same river, bumping into each other, and even blocking one another for a moment.

Looking at obstacles this way, we are asked not to oppose what blocks us as something mounting its will against our own. For the obstacle will simply give our resistance back to us. We are being asked not to empower or perpetuate the life of the obstacle, but to step aside if we can with openness to the energy of the obstacle–much like the ancient art of Aikido, where instead of blocking a punch, you help the punch move past you...”

~ Nepo, of course

We’re all just traveling together. You, me, certain other people who were placed on earth specifically to drive us up a wall. Even the chair leg that launches into our path in the darkness of night and sends us flailing in pain. It’s shocking really. We’re all traveling together, even that tree turned furniture. All of us making our way down the great stream.

This is a hard and important reminder. For me it is a hard and important reminder. (Not even just random detritus–limbs of the same tree–inconceivable!)

I tend to get caught up some days in the knowledge that the whole world has set itself against me. It’s a damned conspiracy some days. All y’all and your rogue tripping hazards all out to get little old me some days.

Some days.

Or, it could be, just possibly, that I’m kicking against the pricks some days, inviting the worst. I think there’s a name for it, in its purest and most painful form… oppositional defiance disorder. Some days, I am disordered in such a way that I am truly oppositional and defiant, and every obstacle solidifies my resolve. To continue defiantly along. Because that works so well.

God, what if we could see ourselves there together in the stream, bumping along, thrashing like fools? I imagine drone footage of rush hour in Minneapolis would be a great illustration, for those who like things a bit more concrete. What if we could see ourselves, lashing out against visions of enemies, pushing back against imagined foes, all of us in truth just doing our best to stay afloat in the Universal stream?

“… All the while we are invited to question that in us which insists that what is before us is an obstacle in the first place. It may not be so. It may be so. It may be something small that our history of struggle has enlarged into tragedy or bad luck.

So if we can, we must focus on our relationship to the stream and not to the things being carried alongside us. If something appears to be blocking our way, we must try to understand what is moving it and what is moving us. If our movement in the world is still blocked, perhaps we are meant to be still. We must try not to damage ourselves unnecessarily by trying to force a movement to happen before its time.“

~ Nepo

Today, when we find ourselves in the throes of a water-borne battle with the universe, when we catch ourselves at odds with whatever happens to be floating in our vicinity, whether one twig or every damned root ball in sight, let’s stop and take a breath, you and I.

Let’s take a massive breath in and ride that exhale, drifting up and out of the viper pit until we can look back down and see ourselves there, sailing the currents with the whole flock of the cosmos. Let’s take a look around and make a conscious choice about which twiggies we want to be in the next single moment… those dancing together like a symphony of stardust, or those with the twisted faces, thorns on display, thrashing.

Let’s trust the flow. Live a little Aikido.

I’m in if you’re in.

Time to love louder.

And because Mark Nepo is never content until he has forced us into our depths, and because sometimes they bring me to tears, I’ll include his meditation, too:

“…

Identify the biggest obstacle in your life at present. What is it keeping you from?
Describe the obstacle as a piece of nature that has its own history. Is it like a shell being broken by the surf, or a stone tumbling down a landslide, or like a small deer frightened in the middle of a busy road?
How is what you want or need colliding with what it wants or needs?”

~ Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening