Yet if we have learned to flow with this dance, if we have found a way to see ourselves as a partner in the process of change, we have a chance. If we have been attuned enough to have caught a whiff of the winds of change even before it arrives, dreaming and planning and making ourselves ready, and if we are aligned with the Tao that is moving within the seemingly chaotic wind that change comes on, then the beauty in that change is ours for the beholding. We are not blindsided, we are a co-creator with a front-row seat.
To make matters better, we are not lost and tossed about when the storms inevitably come by. As a participant, we know when to hold still, and when to move. When to take cover, and when it is safe to come out again. We are intuitively strategic, gleaning the very best moments that arise while others who had expected only sunshine are running in circles, damp with fear.
But How?
Most of the time, we see ourselves as fixed. My name is Robin. I am a writer. I live in Annapolis, Maryland. I drive a gold Saturn four-door. I live with my partner Brian. My mother and father in-law are good friends. I eat mostly organic food. I can't run anymore due to bad knees. This is my life.
This is what the folks in the Harry Potter books would call the Muggle view of life. Yet we are not fixed. Like Harry, there is more to us. More than even we know. And when we take on the role of dance partner in relationship to the changes that move around and through us?especially the ones that seem forced upon us from an outside event?that ?more? is our god-send.
Doing The Two-Step
The first step in this new dance is to accept that we must become more than we thought we were, which includes letting go of more than we thought we could as well as offering more than we thought we had. In doing so, we draw on the inherent magic within for the creation of our true intentions. We step out of the role of victim, and determine ourselves to play with whatever materials we are presented with. With such an attitude, we can replicate the Taj Mahal with soda caps and Popsicle sticks.
Then comes the even more courageous step two. If we are going to find the beauty in being a creator in this life, and the mother of anything, we must accept that not only will we die, but what we create will die as well. (All of it will be reborn of course. That is just another layer in the larger creative chaos-to-harmony and harmony-to-chaos merry-go-round that is our existence.) The flower, the child, the businesses, the books, the marriages (even the ones that last until death), the name we carry, the car we drive?all of it is going to go.
Yet even this has its inherent beauty. With death held respectfully in one hand, we have immediate access to how precious and beautiful all of life is. What is changing will never be again, and so our only option is to enjoy it in all its stages. To dance with wild abandon, as if this is all there is.
