Lately, I have been contemplating how life evolves.
While navel gazing, I have been contrasting the life I observe around me with spiritual constructs that I hear and often read about. In particular, the notion of life unfolding seems to be contrary to what I am seeing at the moment. Juxtaposed to still waters running deep; I see roiling waves buffeting about.
New thought teaches how the gentle spirit will be manifesting and that life can simply be a matter of allowing the unfolding to occur. Yet what we experience in life can be turbulent and terrifying.
Consider Esther Hicks’ saccharine advice:
Everything is unfolding perfectly. And as you relax and find ease in your attitude of trust, knowing that Well-Being is your birth-right, amazing things will happen. Things the likes of which you have not seen before.
The idea of life unfolding conjures up the image of a gentle, flowing river. A sea of universal consciousness meandering along, with everything, including you and me, evolving in divine order. With enough perspective and viewing life from afar, the gentle light flickers like that light from a supernova dying star.
The reality is that at point-blank range, life can be incredibly violent and chaotic. Shit happens to us, around us, and to those we love.
On a physical level, our best understanding of the universe entails a big-bang. Tremendous amounts of energy were released in an explosive burst of mind-boggling proportion. The big-bang is, in essence, an explosion not an unfolding. We are living after our universe blew up and our life is often punctuated by explosive events of varying kinds.
When I hear that word unfolding, I think of neatly packed towels or linens. Words matter to me and I find myself struggling to accept a concept when there is observable, physical evidence to the contrary. So I want to unpack the concept of life unfolding.
Life is not a neatly packed origami puzzle, but rather like a bomb. We can be humming along and then our world is abruptly and fundamentally changed. A loved one can suddenly die without any provocation. Perhaps you lose your job, your health or your lover. These are not gentle flowing events. Our life can appear fluid but it is in fact binary. There is a great discontinuity that bookends our experience here on earth. We are manifest (born) and then we are unmanifest (we die).
You thought God was an architect, now you know
He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow – Jason Isbell, 24-Frames
Volatility is a measure of the changing nature of things. Ultimately we need to learn how to accept the nature of things in whatever words or practices can help us. Personally, I think that we are better served by embracing the unpredictable nature of life, including the explosions. This recognition of life’s preciousness and finite experience may help us to enjoy it more until we can not.
Everything is blowing up perfectly
Beautiful things can and do emerge from the destructive process. Some of the most beautiful sunsets I have seen in my life immediately followed hurricanes that tore through Florida when I lived there. The key is to survive the storm.
Accept the unexpected. Roll with the changes and learn to live and love the volatility.
