There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream, and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in—
the wild with the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.
Control, resistance, refusal – who of us has not experienced this urge to shape life to our own desires? And how we struggle to make things happen the way we want, things that are out of our hands no matter how we try.
Allow – to permit something to happen, to admit the truth of, to acknowledge. This is such a different perspective, where grace will carry you to higher ground. Safety in letting it all in – the wild with the weak; fear, / fantasies,failures and success – this is not a common understanding in our culture where we are taught to try to keep it all out.
Allow loss, sadness, despair? To practice being with what is, simply bearing the truth? What kind of direction is this? Does this call up more resistance or can there be another, more affirming way?
The answer is so simple, if not easy: In the choice to let go of your / known way of being, the whole / world is revealed to your new eyes. As we release our habitual hold on what we thought was the way, fighting, resisting, we see with new eyes – a whole world we have refused. Until we allow.
Heart Poems 