Choosing the Edge

Something shifted in me during or after the press conference yesterday, or during a stormy night, or when I cried in the bathroom this morning about the way Trump bullied that orthodox Jewish reporter, with whom I surely disagree on many issues but who deserves respect and dignity like us all, or on the way to my dance class this morning while I listened to Michael Meade.

“Humans are edge beings,” he said. “We breathe against the unknown.”

I turned off the podcast so I could savor that, even while I was not sure what he meant. When I turned it back on he said that when times are deeply uncertain humans lean one of two ways – into fixity, rigidity, fundamentalism, or into uncertainty, the wild, the unknown – the place where beauty and eternity lie. And just like that, I made a choice.

I choose beauty, wildness, companionship as we head into the unknown. The other way is hopeless. We heard that, saw that yesterday. But everyday, we have a chance to look one another in the eye, and choose what makes us feel alive. I choose the edge. I choose who I am.

It’s gray and rainy outside, I drank too much caffeine again, slept only 4 or 5 hours. It feels like my first beautiful day since November.

 

 

7 thoughts on “Choosing the Edge

  1. Your post deeply loves me and is pressing me to think more deeply about this. It’s easy to throw my hands up and say “it’s all so impossible to deal with.” But then I’m
    Hiding and my practice and life won’t let me do that. Perhaps my choice has been made and I just don’t know it yet.

    • Some friends and I met this evening to talk politics, and during our conversation it struck me that Trump is a koan! The press conference revealed that fully. There’s no way to wrap your head around this situation we are in in a conventional way, so what else is there to do but be wild and caring and truly oneself? What else?!

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