Flowing with Nature's Current

A year ago, last August, I published this blog.

I find the conversation – for patience, for clarity, for trust, for “flowing with Nature’s current” and aligning ourselves with the currents of a vitality given life, to be just as relevant, as pertinent, today as it was a year ago,

To get yourself in the spirit of the reading, I invite you to stop for a short pause and allow yourself to be present to the flow of the Metolius River, a clear, fast-flowing, deep turquoise River in the Cascades of Central Oregon, near Camp Sherman.  It’s a special River. These videos and photos are taken near the source of that river, a deep underground stream. 

 Its clear turquoise waters heal the spirit and soothe the soul.

“We need to move at the speed of guidance.”

—Michael Lerner, Commonweal Founder

Recently, I found myself in a condition of being confused, unclear, and stressed.

Being committed to expanding my reach and making a larger contribution, many possibilities, and opportunities had started to come my way. I wanted to choose them all!

In addition, I was experiencing high stress, with many significant changes and passages my own clients were experiencing, and I needed to find my own way and my own relationship to the changes. I had a navigation issue on my hands.

I started misplacing things. I started confusing myself with my thinking. I was losing access to a place of peace and mindfulness. Life seemed to pull me this way and that. I was in fear of the future. My mind had kicked in big time, with its “worst case scenario” pattern. The wildfire in Maui, the wildfires in Washington, and the floods in Los Angeles, the city in which I grew up, all felt like outward energies and circumstances that mirrored my inner state. I began to feel like I was on a small, wooden boat in the middle of a wild, turbulent sea, about to be swept up. I found myself in a dark place.

I had lost my heart and lost my way.

The Sioux have a saying: “The longest journey we can make in this life is from the head to the heart.”

I knew I had to make that journey, that pilgrimage. I was living in my head, not my heart.

Choices were in front of me, choices that needed to be made from my heart.

What allowed me to transport myself across this threshold from confusion to clarity?

In addition to the outward requests I made for coaching and thinking partners, I started with STOPPING, declaring an inner breakdown, and cultivating a profound longing for a breakthrough.

People don’t stop. We move, we scramble, we keep moving, go faster and faster and get busier and busier, skirting with things that perhaps don’t really matter, skirting on the surface, going farther and farther away from what brings meaning to our lives, what brings us into True Presence, what allows us to listen to our own heart’s song.

Deep inner work was required, and that kind of depth required time.

I stopped.

Real stopping allows for real listening, listening, as St Benedict says, “with the ear of the heart.”

That means getting bigger than the mind’s constant chatter, the chatter of judging, analyzing, comparing, voting, and preparing. In the Arica School, a school for enlightenment I engaged with many, many, many years back, the Founder, who was Chilean, Oscar Ichazo, called that kind of mind chatter “chicherero,” “chich” for short, meaning the sound that the cricket makes.

We could hold listening as a spiritual practice.

When you allow yourself to stop and become aware of your mind rather than being your mind, you will find that you are profoundly wise.

The key is to tap into the wisdom that lies beneath the surface. You have to get silent enough to connect and hear your own Wisdom Speaking. It’s like tuning yourself to a higher frequency.

As I said, I had choices to make.

The Zen tradition cautions us against choosing too early. I wanted to choose NOW, in the midst of life’s circumstances and inner turmoil, but it was not yet time.

Lao Tzu says, “Do you have the patience to wait until the mind settles and the dust clears?”

I did not. And I saw that was a key.

That is when the following poem, “Flowing with the Current,” arrived.

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Flowing With Nature’s Current

by Amba Gale

You have seen
if you give everything the time
to unfold,
if you have patience, everything
grows
to be itself
in its own timing.

When you drop down deep
into the Stillness of the Center
you will find
you are One with it All.

The flowers don’t bloom until they are ready.
The crocus sleeps under the soil until the spring.
The bear awakens only after the winter.
The grapes can be harvested solely in the fall.

Gravity carries the river to the sea.

While man’s world moves at its frantic pace,
in accordance with the mind,
nature has her own timing.

Follow her rules.

Grow your garden
in accord with the sun, and you will flourish
and flow
with the current.

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Questions you might ask yourself:

Where in your life are you not flowing with the current?

What new perspective would you need to create to align your current direction with the direction of life?

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My deep desire is that these posts inspire you,  move you, contribute to you,  and contribute to your life. 

I invite you to share them with others that you would like to contribute to if you are called to do so.

I am dedicating myself to expanding my writing as a contribution, including writing my next book. I am happy to let you know that the distinctions of this particular Substack will, in one way or another, be woven into that book. The current working title of the book is The Art of Sacred Listening, which is based on the principles of my foundational course, The Heart of Leadership.