How is your life right now? How is your life force? How is your energy level these days? There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and a lot of it isn’t sweet sauce. How do you grow through the challenge?
These are times of intense upheaval, my friend. And the difficulty to find a place to root is collective. You might be doing ok right this moment. Embrace it. Many of us are concerned on many levels, about many things. Personal life challenges amplified by the massive instability in our shared systems. People looking for a different place, a different way, uprooting, feeling up in the air, looking for a place to land, not sure where to turn. Many struggle to find something to hold on to. Careers on halt. Relationships undone. Or done. Work hard to find. The private and the public are bound with an invisible rope.
Are you doing at least a few things to support yourself (and others) through this? Are you spending some time with loved ones, to share in the worry, to carry the weight of uncertainty together? Are you spending at least a few moments in solitude; contemplating, reflecting, resting, reading something other than the news – something inspiring perhaps? Are you tending to the garden of your life; to plant, to prune, to sow, to grow the things that nourish you? Are you making time for the practices that ground you and help you breathe and regulate and recharge?
I know you know this, but we all need the reminder:
- Times of struggle give birth to important pieces of existence.
- Difficulties fertilize the soil out of which beautiful things grow
- Without friction, ferocity, and fierce forces, growth isn’t possible.
I’m not trying to say that what’s happening right now is good because it will make things better eventually, or that this is great because out of this mess something wonderful will come, or that we should be happy the human world is on a journey of collapse because it will make us grow and then we’ll live happily ever after. Fuck no!
I’m trying though to remind myself that I’m here to expand, to participate in cosmic expansion. And that expansion happens through contraction.
The uterus contracts rhythmically, and those contractions gradually become more and more intense, in order for the cervix to open, to make room for the baby to come out.
The universe began with a bang and it keeps banging. The intensity that started it all was violent and destructive. Through this rough, wild explosion, creation began to create itself. And this process of creativity is ongoing. This creative power pushes itself and stretches wide by breaking itself, by shaking itself out of form and into another, by death and dissolution, by undoing what was so that it can become the next expression, the next experience.
Yes, the universe is expanding. It has been expanding since it banged itself into existence about 13.7 billion years ago. Galaxies are moving away from each other, dark energy pushes things apart. Vastness is a verb in cosmic language. It just keeps growing. At least for now.
And as a great force pushes things apart, into greater chaos, there are forces that bring things together into form, pulling particles into the arms of one another, joining together to become, to exist, to create.
Remembering that doesn’t mean we should be ok with, or glide without care around the cruelty and irresponsibility, the bigotry and bombastic egomania, with the childish agendas, the recklessness, the carelessness, and the selfishness coming at us from so many direction right now in a violent destructive wave.
Being here for growth can mean different things for different people. And it’s also a meaning made, which means not everyone would feel that they are here to grow. It’s a choice. It’s an invitation. It’s also a privilege.
You might not feel like this perspective is for you, and that’s totally ok. Not everything resonates all the time. If you’re in the midst of a personal grieving process, this might feel like a bunch of bullshit. Trust yourself. Trust your process. Receive it into the spaces where things ring true. Reject the pieces that feel inauthentic for you. Make your process yours. Make it more than yours in your own way. You are part of an immensity of being. There’s room for your view, your experience, your life.
I love the way that in the Bhagavad Gita, Krśna spends a good portion of the text weaving into the conversation all the traditions that came before, all the ideas, all Indian schools of thought. He doesn’t agree with everything, but he makes room for it all. He doesn’t say it’s all the same, but he affirms every piece as part of the collective. He has his views, his opinions, his distinct perspective, which he obviously thinks are right (who doesn’t think their own view is the correct one), but he doesn’t reject or exclude others. AND he also presents a new way, a new vision, a new and different philosophical hypothesis; one that was new in the Hindu world at the time.
Krśna participates in the vast and voluminous world of yoga, showing up to the expanse of a tradition engaged in the expanse of the universe. He shows up as the expansive principle, engaging in expansion.
The yoga tradition has been exploring the vastness of creation ever since Rishis (seers in Sanskrit) started to listen to the universe. The concept of Brahman has been at the root of yoga since the Vedas, through the Upanishads, into all major schools of Hindu philosophy. The verb root; “brh” means to expand.
Brahman is often referred to, and/or translated into; “the ultimate reality,” or “The Absolute.”
Thinking of something as Absolute is problematic. Especially when we put a capital A in the beginning of the word. Not only is this a very limiting interpretation of the concept of Brahman, of the massive process that is the universe, but it’s also a prelude to autocracy. If something is Absolute it’s got no room for growth, it’s done, it’s finished. It no longer creates. It doesn’t need to reflect. It can’t make mistakes. It knows everything. It’s above it all. See the issue here?
The beautiful and agitating thing about life, about our own potential, about wisdom, about nature, about humanity, about philosophy, about stories, about art, about the universe, is that it keeps going. The universe keeps growing. And we’re never gonna figure it all out. The unseen will continue to remain greater than the seen. The unknown will continue to expand the more we learn, the more we know. And into the vastness we are invited to grow.
My almost eight year old son has been fascinated and frustrated with the idea that the universe is expanding, because what the hell is beyond it that it’s expanding into? I’ve been fascinated with this question my entire life. And I love revelling in those concepts that the mind can’t wrap around. While he gets really annoyed with it, and says things like; “how come the most magical thing about the universe is so annoying?” I feel nourished by the lack of answers, by the edge of growth we’ll never be able to accomplish, because it will just keep pushing further away. I hope to be able to transmit the awe, and the joy of marveling in the mystery to my kid.
The thing is, the unfinished, the unreachable, the fact that there is no end to the universe, and yet it keeps growing, is the creative core of existence, and like the heart, it pulses through and reaches into every part that extends out of it. Creativity is what the universe is. And you are a creative part of it.
A time like this might make you feel like what’s the fucking point anyway? But you are a magical creative agency!
If you are here to expand, you might be exploring yourself at the growth edge that you’re meeting right now. You might ask: What is the boundary that I am facing at the moment? What is this moment of crisis and difficulty teaching me? What am I learning? How will this help my soulfulness expand? How can I become more resourceful through this very intensity? How could I become a resource for something greater than myself as I map my way through the ruins, through the fire, through chaos?
My best friend calls it “the curriculum.” You meet a pain point, a well of wounds, a difficult situation, a massive disappointment, and you make room for all the feelings, and you allow yourself the reaction of your inner child, the response of your inner maturity, the tangled mess, the tenderness, the intensity, the imagination – all of it! And you figure out what there is to learn, and how there is to grow. And you do the work.
And my love, the work is creative!!!! The work is a work of art!!!! So as we face the fucking world’s collapse, we get to go to school. And much of it won’t be fun. And we’ll need to study and reflect and question. There will be tests. There will be growing pains. But the process will also be generative. And our creativity is needed right now, more than anything!
Something that really touched me while studying the Bhagavad Gita with Douglas Brooks in great depth, is the idea that Krśna turns Brahman into an act of creativity. Creativity is what the universe is. Engaging in creativity is engaging in the universe, and there are expansive possibilities, continuous unfoldment, a vast ocean that keeps growing, and you’re part of it, you grow with it.
Creativity is expansive, it’s not reductive. The universe is infinite, it’s complex, not simple. And this vastness, this grandness, continues to expand, to become more, to create further, to push against boundaries and keep on becoming. And so do we.
Check out my latest Substack Monday Muse Medicine piece – it has more about creativity and complexity. And please subscribe to my publication there! You’ll love it and it would mean the world to me! I need your support in growing there!
What are you learning? What are you creating? Who are you becoming through the great ferocity of our times?
Write a comment and share your thoughts. Let’s support each other through this, let’s hold each other close.
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Thanks so much for being here! I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
Much love,
Hagar
P.S – the image is The Pillars Of Creation from the James Webb Telescope