I find myself drenched in curiosity these days.
I am asking more questions, trying to discern what is kind to say, and resting in the discomfort of not knowing things.
This shift to witnessing and listening is not sudden, but rather a focused effort to decentralize my thinking. I know a lot, for sure, but I don’t know as much as I think I do.
Maybe this is better framed as detachment or taking a breath before responding to life and humans.
And maybe this is wisdom, the knowing that deepens into grooves and carves out new patterns of relating — to myself and to others.
I want to describe what it feels like, but it’s new. I want to document how I arrived, but I’ve just walked in the door.
I’ve barely taken off my coat and looked around.
The Calm in the Storm
The world continues on, blustering and wanting attention. Voices and faces and ongoing conversations about how to do this right or that correctly. Opinions like tornadoes, clearing large divides and damage to the structures that weren’t ready for a storm like this.
Yet, this is not an invitation for quiet.
In this current world, silence is not an option. And there are many ways to speak up, to participate, and to be engaged.
Recently, I facilitated a class on the goddess, Gaia, and I spent the last part of it talking about activism and how action builds relationships with deities, land, and ourselves.
We are all different selves in different places with different abilities and different connections. We don’t see everything everyone does. What we do see is controlled by algorithms, cookies, and other technical things I don’t understand. Often, what we do see, is what we want to see. Or what others have paid to be seen.
So, I invoke the power of curiosity. Ask questions, broaden interpretations, and sit beside each other in this time where we need to activate community to create sustainable movements.
For me, this begins in the quiet. This begins in the place of standing solid in myself and in the possibility that I don’t know everything — and I certainly can’t do everything.
I can breathe into myself and know that I can show up as best I can. And that’s all I can ask of anyone else.
Perhaps this is too simplistic of thinking and it’s likely just a stopover on the way to more wisdom (I hope so).
And I wanted to share this invitation to expansion because if there is anything I am certain of in these days, it’s this: to bring to life the solutions we want, our thinking needs to widen beyond what we think we know.
The old way of thinking is what got us here and keeps us here.
Letting go of the tension of rigidity might just relax the parts of our hearts that have been paused and frozen for long enough.
What would it be like if we asked more questions?
What would it be like if we didn’t assume, but clarified?
What would it feel like if we were less invested in being right and more invested in liberation?
***
Wanna know more about the kinds of things I write, teach, and practice? Here’s my website: www.irisanyamoon.com