We tend to talk about things on a continuum. Life is this ever evolving process that we tend to think of with a starting point, a middle path and then an ending. Life does feel like it progresses this way...at least it used to.
Some time ago, though, I began to think of life and living and healing as a spiral, like a traffic cone. And now, I cannot ever think of it as a line with a starting point and an ending point. It is just this ever evolving, upwards spiral of growth and understanding. Sure there is a line where we begin this spiral, but I have ceased really believing there is an end. Instead, perhaps, there is a line that we cross over on this spiral where this part of our energetic lives changes into spirit. And perhaps everything we have endured, suffered, gained, loss, understood and misunderstood is to prepare us for the life that begins once this one ends.
For me, this whole traffic cone idea of healing and living works. When we begin life we are at its base. It takes us a long while to get around, to accumulate knowledge and skill, because the base is larger and stable. We are supposed to have the time to develop and grow and change in the beginning. Some of us get what we need, most of us do not. Regardless the spiral continues.
And it is always going upwards, and you can’t stall out on a spiral. You are always going up, whether you want to or not. I suppose you can reverse and go back down the spiral but I don’t think so. I have always felt that there is pressure or some invisible force ever pushing us higher. Whether you believe in that force or not is immaterial. It is there, compelling you forward, always.
I suppose you can slow down, perhaps there are times you have a lofty ascent. And then there are times when you are moving at a snail’s pace. I think it matters not at all, the progress is always forward.
However, we do revisit stations of the cone. For me, the issues and challenges remain the same. As do my character defects and assets. They are what they are and while I can make progress in my understanding and ability to not act them out, they will be mine on this life’s journey and perhaps beyond. It is like I was given a puzzle that is mine to solve and I am given this life time to figure it out. To sort it through, to move forward and learn the things I am supposed to learn.
So as I spiral around those issues and defects, I am given the opportunity and chance to gain knowledge and insight and power. The issues shall remain mine, my set of issues, problems, character attributes and the like, but the lessons mine, to learn or repeat. I will forever be moved higher and higher so my vantage point shall always be changing.
And as I move up this traffic cone, the spiral gets tighter and tighter. My time in the light and the dark so close together. When I started on this living adventure at the base, the periods of light and dark seemed so far apart. It was easy to hold the delusion that when things were light and happy, they would remain that way. And similarly, it was unfortunate to believe that when things were hard and miserable, that too would also remain that way.
But now, as my life grows older and my time on the spiral tightens and hastens, I move so rapidly through the light and dark that they are almost indistinguishable from each other. The light is sometimes hard and the dark times often amazing gifts. And I realize that all I learned before is always up for further interpretation.
What is often “bad” is fodder for shit I need to learn. And what is “good” is often shit that I need to learn. It is all about learning and growing and changing and moving up the spiral in tighter and tighter circles until I cross the invisible line.
What I do with my time on the spiral is what is most important. I can use my time here to just bemoan the life I have and the issues that are mine. Or I can see how my life can benefit others. How what I have lived through, survived, endured, changed, lived and loved can be useful to others on their spiral towards the great unknown.
I know absolutely for certain that my life on this spiral keeps me coming back to things I thought I learned but didn’t. Or I did but there is more to learn. There are deeper and deeper truths to understand and learn on our individual spirals.
So I endeavor to see all of us as these inverted cyclones blowing around, taking with us all that we have always been, evolving, hopefully, into all we can be. Tiny, moveable traffic cones of light and dark, of life and love, whirling about the world, allowing that which plagues us to enslave us or set us free. And perhaps the most spiritual thing we can ever do in this life is to see that all of it is supposed to be shared, given as gifs to each other so that we can evolve and change and grow in our understanding of life and living and loving a little more each day.
Perhaps life’s greatest lesson is about healing. And forgiveness. And love. Perhaps that is what each of us is supposed to do with our spiraling lives...to use each moment we are blessed with to share the knowledge, the pain, the joy and the lessons of our ever evolving spirals towards enlightenment.
Again...still.
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