“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey. “
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.” Wendell Berry
What now? We have never been here before, and moments of unknowing can be almost paralyzing at times. It is our human tendency to project our fears into the unknown…and maybe feel even feel victimized or inadequate in the face of them. It sure is a time for faith. But how do we find our faith? How do we stabilize our nervous system, and cultivate our resilience so we can use the best of our intelligence and connectivity?
Nature. The Earth and the nature that we are. When our minds do not have the answers, we can drop down…to our hearts, our bellies, our knees…put our hands and feet on the Earth. Touch and be touched. Let ourselves feel and sense and be. I like that word, bewilder. It is an answer embedded in a question. The word Wild might invoke some idea of unbridled craziness for some, but to me it means natural. Fresh, untainted, unfettered. Our mind habituates, it learns and repeats. But our hearts can be wild, in direct relationship to this moment, open and free. It is our bodies that can touch the earth and each other, can feel the truth and beauty of just this moment of breath and life.
The surest route to cultivating our faith is down…to our bodies and the Earth. There is an intelligence in us that we can access through our bodies, through a nervous system that has been soothed and calmed so it is able to access the present moment in all its truth and possibility. There are many ways to shift our nervous system to calm from the overstimulation and fear states it is used to. With practice, we can actually reset and recalibrate it. Using the breath, meditation, body/mind practices in general…and by going out into nature. Letting ourselves learn from nature, come home to it, rest in it, we heal our beleaguered nervous systems and can engage our deeper intelligence.
We know this in our bones. We can be wilder… like children. And as it has been said…when we become like children, we can enter the kingdom of heaven… we can create heaven. We can do it together.
…But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you, and the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you. Or speak to the Earth, and let it teach you… Job 12:7-8