WAIT, AND NOTICE

There is a difference between learning something and knowing it.  You can intentionally learn something, but you cannot intentionally know it.  Knowing comes unexpectedly.  You don't schedule it and you don't anticipate it.  Just as a for instance:

Washing my face yesterday afternoon (I got a late start)....becoming aware of a peaceful yet buoyant kind of attitude within myself -- not my usual state of mind.  Peaceful, yet buoyant.  And then the joyful thought -- just notice.  Just observe.  No need to hang on.  No need to analyze.

Here's where the knowing comes in.  At that moment, I knew what I've been learning about in meditation and yoga classes,sitting in silence, reading, journaling, listening to guided meditations.

Which is....everything is changing all the time, pain becomes fear becomes sadness becomes wonder becomes joy....etc., etc.  It is our stories and our judging that add pain to our lives, the stories we tell ourselves, the add-ons to what is.  So that we pay attention to our stories, and in fact we think our stories are "true," and we don't really know what is. And when and if we feel joy, we want it to last longer, and we want to know how to replicate it tomorrow.  And when we feel pain, we turn away and attempt to analyze how we can get rid of it.  Or we give it to other people.

But washing my face yesterday afternoon, I noticed.  I just noticed.

The thing is, I have been feeling sluggish, and a little stuck, and disengaged.  For awhile.  In the wilderness.  And then this morning, I was awake, and I went to yoga, and the day just flowed.  I was out of the house for 11 hours -- on a Sunday -- and it just flowed.

Do you think the knowing from the afternoon before had anything to do with the clarity I felt today?

Over and over today the word I thought was.....WAIT.  Things change.  Things get unstuck.  Emotions get re-engaged.  Energy gets replenished.  Being awake happens.  And the other way around too.

Knowing comes unexpectedly.  You wash your face and you notice.