Great Mysteries…
“It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.” — Diane Ackerman
This past Sunday afternoon I heard author Matt Kahn speak (in answer to a question from the audience) about how continuing to ask “Why?” about a loss we’re grieving keeps the grief present and unable to move through us at whatever pace is right.
Later that day I read something that caused me to wonder once again why bad things happen to some people (how they “just happened” to be in the wrong place).
Our curiosity and wanting to fully understand something can cause us to push against the mysteries we experience in our lives, sometimes to our detriment.
Albert Einstein reminds us of the importance of mystery: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” He also of course highly values curiosity: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Perhaps what we need to do to in this time of so much upheaval is to seek a natural balance between being curious or asking why and letting go to embrace the mystery.
Where in your life are you spending too much time asking “why” about something that happened? How might letting go of the need to understand and embracing the mystery support you in fully living?
May the Great Mystery comfort you and bring you peace when you find it difficult to let go of needing to know “why.” And may you seek and find the inner wisdom to know when to call on curiosity and when to surrender to the mystery.
“Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.” ―Clive Ollies
Among the Beauties
“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth
are never alone or weary of life.”
― Rachel Carson
You, Darkness
You, darkness, that I come from
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone
and then no one outside learns of you.But the darkness pulls in everything-
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them! –
powers and people-
and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.
I have faith in nights.
― Rainer Maria Rilke
