Untying knots by the light of the rising sun

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie. - Jean Cocteau

This morning's beach walk was clear and breezy. I still feel restless, like there is a problem to be solved, a journey to be embarked upon, and I suspect the lesson of patience is still on my horizon.

As I clicked on the radio and started the car, Henry Purcell's "The Gordian Knot United" was announced. I sat and watched the waves roll in, and listened, and thought about knots.

The Gordian knot, beyond its history, has become a metaphor for a particularly difficult problem, one with no seeming solution that one must be willing to cut away in order to solve. Perhaps that slashing represents the "out of the box" thinking (my own well-used metaphor). Today it seems to me to be an impatient rush to solution, that eliminates the healing and wisdom of the journey and process of finding a new pathway.

A little internet research this morning also reveled the healing power of the Gordian Knot. In fact, many people wear them as spiritual jewelery with healing properties...

"Three are the circles of existence:
The circle of Light where dwells nothing but God and only God can traverse it.
The circle of Chaos, from which all things by nature arise from death.
The Circle of awareness where all things spring from life."
Emerald tablet of Thoth

I'm not really sure I need to start wearing anything, my current practice of Spirit works fine for me. But today I do feel more open to new avenues of learning. I see in today's musings a reminder that some problems contain a gift in the solving, more so than the solution.

Clearness?

"Your job is to find what the world is trying to be." - William Stafford

I'm doing a lot of musing on a F/friend's blog post today about how she feels God speaks to her in a very direct way. Today was a very different Hampton Beach from yesterday. The skies were clear, and I felt as if I could see for miles.

I did not, however, feel on the inside any better than yesterday morning - I still felt lost in a fog, not the fog of unknowing or wonderment or forgetting (gracious we have many kinds of fog!). Just the simple fog of confusion, which muddles my process, leads me away from peace and leadings, and creates fear that is unwarranted and toxic.

This is the part where the bargaining with Spirit always begins for me. "If I could only glimpse one moment, be given one small step with which to proceed on the path...". This is also where the great sages and mystics of the Universe have also gotten stuck. Often. Somedays I am gracefully kicked back to "beginning mind" - or more often, I spend a little time wallowing.

Today I opened Stafford's book (which is always in my glovebox) and his words spoke to me, in a clear directive....

"Your job is to find what the world is trying to be."

The world, for today, is my Quaker Meeting. For there is where I feel so often that we collapse into a lack of Spirit, a lack of intent, an elimination of prayerful space. This week I have been hit with "nudges" - simple but profound signs (and interactions with others) that we are wanting to go deeper, to experience each other and Spirit in community. For me, the community is always involved. That's the hardest part - I'm a really a pretty good solitary spirit - involve others and I get cranky and trapped in assumptions. Repeatedly.

I have no idea what is in store next. Which is most likely exactly where I need to be in order for anything to happen!

Fog.

(I am back to blogging. My hiatus was accompanied by lots of journaling - but I'm finding it too tedious to have to copy into my notebook all the poetry and quotations with arthritic hands. We'll see how this goes.)

This morning I took a long walk on Hampton Beach. I almost didn't head there this morning, as there was thick fog and rain was threatening. I am glad I ended up there - as often happens, the weather, the beach, the sea, all spoke in metaphor to my condition today.

The fog was so thick I could not see more than a few feet into the beach - I could not tell if the tide was high or low, and I could barely hear the waves. I was reluctant to venture out into the mist, but I kicked off my flip-flops and headed into the cool, freshly raked sand.

About ten steps in, and I could not see the sidewalk I had just left. I still couldn't see the ocean, and I felt myself in an uncomfortable place between two worlds. Most likely because of the heavy mist around me, the separation felt tangible. I kept on walking, wondering when I would see the water. The sand became smoother, wetter, and soon I saw the stones and heard the waves.

This morning was a very low tide, and I had to walk out even further to the ocean. I turned around, and could not see any sign of the boardwalk, my car, or much of the sand. What surprised me, and made me smile, is what I did find.

At the ocean's edge, there were people - lots of them! We beach walkers are a strange bunch - rising to greet the dawn when others are still sleeping, and there is an unsaid sort of understanding as we nod in greeting to each other as we pass on the beach. Its own kind of community, people joined in their love of the ocean and cool mornings and peace.

Today's reflective moments for me all centered around community, unknowing, risks, and how we find ourselves. I feel right now like I am on some sort of journey, and the next steps, and the meeting of the community, cannot happen unless I am willing to venture out and lose sight of the shore. And there on this misty morning, the community was waiting for me.


In the Fog

It's strange to wander in the fog!
A lonely bush, a lonely stone,
No tree can see the other one,
And one is all alone.

The world was full of friends back then,
As life was light to me;
But now the fog has come,
And no one can I see.

Truly, no one is wise,
Who does not know the dark
Which inevitably and silently
Does from others him part.

It's strange to wander in the fog!
Life is loneliness
No Man knows the other one,
And one is all alone.

- Hermann Hesse