"Seeing"

Most of are blessed with sight. It fades as we age, but most people are given this ability at birth. And maintain it through the course of our lives.

In my lifetime, I am amazed at just how often I see but do not really see. I mean I get up every day and use my eyes to do things. Daily routine activities. Work. Child rearing. I use my eyes for everything all day long and I am privileged enough to “see” that I take it all for granted. I just expect to wake up blessed with sight.

I have come to “see” that while I have the ability, I do not always have the knowledge that comes from sensory input. I see but do not really see.

I was driving a lot yesterday with lots of time to think/marinate on some things. I prefer ruminate really, ruminating has this pleasant associate of Rumi spinning around columns in some sort of fantastical mental spiral. Not unlike mine, in some ways. I am not creating anything of his caliber but I think the mental thought spirals are indeed similar.

As I was driving yesterday, I realized that seeing, I mean really seeing, takes time and stillness and quiet. I see a lot all day, every day. But I actually see not much of anything with all the seeing I do.

As I drove yesterday, I had a lot of time to think and to give sight a chance to really land.

Who are these people I love?

What do they need?

Why do they do what they do?

Where am I in all of this busyness?

How do I relate, or not?

And they appeared differently to me. I saw them. At least I think I did. I mean the mind has this amazing ability to reveal things and then to later reveal something else only to realize that you were wrong with your first visual completely. Life is hard to trust sometimes with all the twists and turns. I am often sure things are looking up, only to find a rather nasty downturn that was totally unexpected!

And of course the reverse is also true. I have been the recipient of many an upturn in my life. Of course, those do not get my attention and come with a forward story that things will now be fine...forever!

What I realized yesterday is that I fail to really see the beings in my life because I don’t want to. I mean I want to but I want them to look how I want them to look and I want them to reflect back to me what I think I put out there and if they don’t, well then I don’t really want to look at that. It is painful.

But when I take the time and put forth the effort to really see, to look at the people in my life without an agenda but with a curiosity and love that is available to me when I slow down enough to take notice, then I see things that were not visible before...at least not to me.

And they come with the knowledge and belief that truth, like visions come with a lack of permanency. I want to see and have that be it! I saw and now it is done, known and can be shelved because I may need it later, but probably not. I am a keeper of things so throwing the information out is just not really an option. I might need it later...which is amusing because I often save so much crap that I couldn’t find it even if I needed to.

I am not sure what happened to all my organizational skills. They seem to be deteriorating more rapidly than my vision. And that is saying something.

Getting to today’s point: I have to slow down to see. I cannot take it all in when I am running Mach 10 with my hair on fire. And sometimes it feels way worse to slow down than to light myself on fire. The mad rush to extinguish the flames seems like more important work than idly waiting for new information to come and decimate my present reality.

Denial is real and it is the first thing that must be set aside if I am ever to see anything at all.

I found myself saying the following prayer yesterday as I drove, it kind of became a mantra for me as the day progressed and I found comfort and peace in these words:

Look.

See.

Do Not Judge.

Do Not Decide.

Just look.

Be curious.

Be open.

Allow the information to land.

You are ok.

The time for action will come.

Right now, all you need to do is see.

Slowed me right the fuck down. And so that is what I did yesterday. I saw. I viewed. I just allowed whatever was occurring to be there and I did my best to just allow it in without it forcing me into conversations or decisions or thinking that I now KNOW shit.

It is all just information coming at me a million miles an hour. And I miss so much of it because I am so busy trying to filter it out. Sort through it at the pace in which the information comes. Which is impossible.

Seeing requires peace, silence and stillness.

I knew that... I swear I did. But I seem to have forgotten again. And when I can’t be still with all that is coming at me but still need the relief of truly seeing, I walk it into the mountains, streams and hills. That is where I go to see when I cannot be still enough to just allow the information to land peacefully.

Seeing really is its own reward, even if I do not like what becomes visible. Reality always wins. It might as well be based on what I have seen, what I felt because of what I have seen and what is “true” for me. I may not always like it but if it is true, I cannot deny that I see it. I just have to stop all the action and slow it all way down so that I have a chance to see what really is, instead of what I would like it to be.