noisy surrender

 

 

a friend read my post from yesterday

and declared

"surrender. beautiful"

 

and i was gently reminded, re-guided to the path

of surrender

 and all the life

 that open up for me

 when i hand over what is not mine to keep.

 

 i have had many opportunities to practice surrendering

that and those that i love so deeply these past few years.

friendships,

health,

finances,

my dignity on occasions,

fears,

my curly haired girl,

the sense of self that comes from our "career",

the list could go on and on,

and now,

my fierce garden girl dreams.

 

what i know is this.

i do not yet surrender quietly.

i tend to fight, to keep going back and picking it up again,

whatever it may be.

i carry it for longer than necessary and i cry out about it,

quite a bit,

in the private spaces of my life.

 

but i do surrender

in the end

 and each time i am needing to face a reality, give up something or someone

it is always lined with such learning and stretching and loving.

  what finally arrives is a gentle release, 

 an often bitter sweet

 space and a landing that has,

 mercifully,

 never been more than i can bear.

 

this surrender business

is bringing me closer to living a life of constant trust.

trusting in the moment, the journey, the bigger plan,

the new opportunities and gifts and friendships that await me

and this surrender work

is teaching me to not hold on too tightly to that which is not mine to grasp,

that an open hand receives much more than a tightly grasped fist and that

there is beauty in the empty spaces.

 

i need not rush to fill them.

 

a sweet comment on my blog last night

allowed me to re frame my sadness of the weekend.

she  helped return me to the path of optimism

by simply reminding me that i can still be a

"scatterer of seeds"

 

how lovely is that image?

that i can and will always do...

 

-a seed scatterer- 

and one who learns to trust the path of surrender.

the ground will not fail me.

nor will the practice.

i will get quieter, more graceful about it i am sure,

as the years continue to pass me by and squeeze me as they will.