currents

It seems to me that trust and hope are energetically tied to each other. Not in a way that feels like american fast food. Over-processed and shallow. More in the sense that facing the tempest and fraught expanse of relational connection to another is intrinsically hopeful and requires trust. Engaging in a way that is expectant of a life that could be drawn out and treasured and given into. There’s something so full of longing in it.

It seems to be true that when I allow my heart to open and incur wounds through being vulnerable in the world, life is unexpected. It’s so much more than living on the sidelines. The textures are different and the way that I breath into the space sometimes hurts more than I knew it could and sometimes it is more powerful (in the right way) than I could have dreamed. Either way when I live this way I am home. I’m at peace and I know who I am more than I did yesterday.

The project of trusting hope is a practice of showing up and asking for what I need and listening to the needs of another. The bed rock of this practice is saying true things. Without that there is no foundation on which to build. (Not truth in an abstract sense) Truth in the way that I say what is happening inside me and trust that the other speaks these words about their experience to me. Cherish. Hold. Open. Fight. Cry. It’s all part of the process.

The action bit is where the trust blooms. Because when I tell someone something and then consistently show up that way for them I am deepening a connection between us that says. “I will show you my work. This is the way that I move in the world.” The word integrity comes from the word integer (part of a whole) but beyond that (pre-latin) it comes from something that essentially translates to “untouched essence”. That’s how integrity is. It can’t be given or taken, it simply exists beyond the material realm and is worked out through the material world. It’s practiced through interacting with myself and the material world. However, the more I integrate, the more I hear the sound of myself. Which is to say I am safe.

I used to not be sure how to tell if something was true or not. I think I’m learning how to feel that through the process of being true. (Of course energy moves like that.) If you practice sincerity it’s easier to spot insincerity. Trust and hope are some of the most painful and beautiful energies in the world. Pregnant with potential. I wouldn’t want to live without them. My dear friends. There’s no way to go through life in a true way and escape heartbreak. (David Whyte said something similar.) But the tears turn sweet after the bitterness passes. I look back on some of the hardest moments from my past that were coming from a true place with sweetness now because I see how those where taking place in the discovered part of me. And there are fathoms beyond those corridors in my heart. I was on the path, but didn’t know at the time. I just thought I’d lost it all. Losing it all is the best medicine sometimes though. Never know what you might find if you let go.