The Art of Losing

 

I think I must be at some level of surrender, even though I don’t much like that word.

Then again, it is appropriate since it reflects an experience of relaxation stemming from cessation of struggle.

Even though a part of me wants to jump in to the execution controversy and add my righteously opinionated two cents, the wiser self lays an ethereal hand over those thrumming strings and quiets them. Not for you, it seems to say. You don’t have a horse in that race.

And it’s the same with the burbling monster that has arisen in the guise of FDA approval of one of the toxic vaccines. More bad news on the doorstep in cartoonishly giant typeface. 

Although I experienced a brief flutter of unease, it was followed almost immediately by a shrug and the wiser self‘s polite query: does this affect you right this moment? Is it likely to affect you? 

No and no.

If I refrain from swimming in the murky pools of bad news and controversy and confusion that seem to permeate much of reality, where does that leave me?

High and dry on a pleasant sandy shore of my own creation, where the pale silver sun gleams on the sparkling ocean and a school of dolphins breaches the heavenly blue waves.

*****

I give some credit to the ant invasion for this surprising energy of surrender.

Bowing to the necessity of removing clumps of ants from various odd corners of the house brought to my attention something I’ve been avoiding.

Clutter and grime.

Oh, nothing terrible. This isn’t a hoarder’s home or even a hobbyist‘s. But, stuff collects. Lacking easy, pain-free mobility for the last several years has made me disinclined to do anything but the absolute minimum.

But dealing with the ant invasion prompted me to contemplate the clutter without looking through a haze of abiding reluctance. And to take small actions and make small changes in a leisurely manner. Clean a little here, clear up a little there.

The cleaning and clearing activities are not compelling in themselves. What I find intriguing is how differently I feel with this decluttering round. And, feeling differently, I am acting differently.

I am not making lists that chide me with demands and time schedules.

I don’t tell myself that I must finish a whole room when all I have energy for or interest in is doing a corner of it.

In other words, my mind isn’t running this show. I don’t really even sense it yammering away from the back seat.

How liberating this is.

I navigate fluidly, mindlessly / mindfully through what has always been a minefield of shoulds and oughts and the “right” way to do things.

Because it is in such stark contrast to every other time I have approached the tasks of clearing extraneous stuff and thoroughly cleaning what’s left, the aware part of me sits up and takes notice. 

Could it be…is it possible…that in this surrender, which has resulted in removing the mind from the driver‘s seat and replacing it with directions from my heart, I have been freed?

*****

The word “surrender” has always had ominous connotations of loss in my mind. When you surrender something it means giving it up, losing a valuable object or state of being. Perhaps something precious.

I can hardly fault myself for following the third-dimensional playbook of empirical materialism and its personal director, the mind. I’ve been immured in it my entire life and likely innumerable previous lifetimes over the millennia.

This loss I feel, where my mind no longer seems to control me through its puppet strings, is enormous.

And yet, like Elizabeth Bishop notes, that particular loss has been intended all along. It was intended, one might say foreordained, that my rigid mind and logic be lost so that the flexible fluid promptings of my heart could take over and steer the direction of my life.

That is a loss and a surrender that engenders nothing but peace.

An involuntary, happy sigh escapes. As always, my body presents me with evidence of what is true and real and right for me.

Peaceful surrender is mine.