Life is a Paradox
When I talk about preparation for a medicine journey, I always tend to come back to the paradox of setting intentions with unwavering intent, and at the same time paradoxically surrendering and letting go of all intentions. Paradoxes are not only part of setting intentions for a medicine journey – paradoxes show up everywhere in life. And when I sit with it, life IS a paradox. All of it – is one magnificent paradox.
Consider these examples:
We approach life with a fervor, we focus and we give it our all and everything, we are fully engaged and vigilant–and in the same breath – we lean into nothingness, we let go, we sit back and allow life to happen to us. This leaning back into nothingness is not passive, but rather an active engagement, something we do with absolute intensity; there is an action-packed nothingness. We never check out. We tune in.
We let go of the idea that we are in control of anything, we give ourselves up to the flow of life and the cosmic forces, and trust and know that we are taken care of and that everything is evolving exactly as it is meant to be. We can’t change or control anything. And at the same time, we are the masters of our lives, creators of our experiences, and architects of our destinies; we truly and for real have the power to create our entire existence. AND we surrender and relinquish control. All at the very same time
We recognize that we are the most important thing/being in the world, and at the same time, we are absolutely pointless and have zero importance. We matter and we do not matter. We hold weight and are simultaneously weightless. Life itself is a paradoxical juxtaposition of grave seriousness and cosmic jest—a grand cosmic joke that invites us to partake in the laughter.
In moments of profound presence and connection with the divine, when we experience that moment of total presence and stillness and aliveness, we encounter the paradox of absolutely everything and absolutely nothing. We expand and contract. We are forever and we are juts a blip in time. Life, in its purest form, mirrors the paradoxical nature of existence. Within the darkness resides light, and within nothingness, the essence of everything unfolds.
As individuals, we oscillate between extremes—everything and nothing, light and dark, existence and non-existence, life and death, up and down. The grand task is to cease this oscillation and exist within the all-encompassing paradox of life. This is a coming into the center—the center of ourselves, the center of the universe, the center of the paradoxes—they are all one and the same. Here, in the very heart, lies the is-ness of life.
The is-ness of life is the topic for another discussion. Until then, may you find harmony within the paradoxes that shape your existence. Stay tuned.
