As we step into spring, I am looking back on this strangest of winters, thinking about its challenges and its blessings.
One of the practices I established to support myself through the winter was a daily reflection and writing practice. A framework I chose for this practice is the Yamas and Niyamas (the ethical practices of yoga), and I’ve been using Deborah Adele’s excellent book to guide me through the teachings. One of the guidelines that I often struggle with is Brahmacharya, or Non-excess; the term translates literally as “walking with God” and asks us to notice the excesses that distract us from our awareness of the sacred and divine, and to notice also what draws us closer to God. The suggestion is made to “practice letting everything be in relationship with the Divine. See the sacred in the ordinary and God in each person you encounter.”
In these days of having a year of pandemic living behind me and wondering if and when things will ever feel “normal” again, wondering what the new normal will be, and knowing it will still be months before I can hug the people I love, this feels like a really big ask. I want to walk through each day seeing the sacred and divine, but it’s really difficult to do when I have to remember to put a mask on every time I leave my home, when I have a huge amount of insecurity around my work and income, when I see the disproportionate effects of this pandemic on women, on the elderly, on those who are already marginalized. (I could go on, but I’m sure you’ve already got your own well-established list.) Where is the sacred and divine in that? This difficult stuff that we’re dealing with is so big that I can’t just close my eyes to it and focus on the good things.
All of this had been gnawing at me until one morning, as I sat with my coffee at my computer, a conversation with a friend came to mind in which she had described the way she saw the sacred in what I felt was a very mundane part of my life. That was a turning point for me. I remembered that if I’m only looking for God in the parts of life that feel good, that’s the only place I will experience God. To close my eyes to difficult things is to shut out the opportunity to see the sacred that is present in them.
Can you think of a messy or painful moment that also held a great deal of love and/or beauty for you? Was that moment made more or less beautiful (or sacred) because of the pain? Sacred isn’t always sterile, pristine, but can often happen in life’s messiest situations. That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard for us to see and acknowledge it.
I think there are many things about this past year we would like to erase. It has been so difficult on many levels, and I think we have all spent time flailing around and trying to make sense of things as we try to right our vessels and steer towards calmer, more navigable waters. But it hasn’t been all bad. In this past year we have seen touching acts of kindness and generosity in the midst of pain and heartache. There have been new babies, creative ways of staying connected to loved ones, new appreciation of walks on trails, beer on patios and opportunities to live more intentionally.
I have grown in ways I couldn’t have, had life not been so rudely interrupted. After losing my job I discovered I had the resilience and creativity necessary to create new work. I have been writing daily and am actively dreaming and making plans about where that will lead me. I mastered the art of baking sourdough bread and now go through flour at a rate my grandmother would be proud of. I am taking advantage of the opportunity this slower pace has provided to think about the ways I want to be in the world.
It is not such a stretch now, to see the Sacred in this messy life and in those who walk beside me through the mess, at times reaching out to me for help, and at times helping me in return. What beauty has come out of life’s messiness for you? In what unexpected places do you see the Divine?
