As I sat with the night sky, drinking in the cool breeze, the wind in the trees, I asked Her to unwind 
my nervous system, to recalibrate me to the true speed of life. Lightning flashing in the north, illuminating the clouds in fiery magnificence. As the darkness settles into me, I find my mind less crowded with thoughts from the day, and my senses becoming attuned to the moment. Fireflies, flying upward into the trees, blinking one, two, three… the storm moving northward, and westward… two storms dancing near each other.
As I settle into this Real World, I ask Her how I can live more in alignment with what I experience each night. And the message is clear: You must give yourself to me. Do you trust me? Do you trust that I will care for you and make sure your needs are met?
Inside, I feel the familiar scramble. The scramble that pushes me to work harder and smarter, to use my grounded, practical intelligence to find ways of making a living that are also personally and spiritually fulfilling. The divide I feel between the human world of money and work and practicalities is often in conflict with my heart’s true longing: to do only that which is in alignment with my soul’s purpose, and in alignment with what is best for the unfolding good of this world. And I often feel like I am falling short. Many of the people in my life have encouraged me to compromise over the years, to add on something to my already full days in order to generate more stable income. And yet I have come too far in this direction of the desire to live in alignment with the path that has unfolded in front of me, guided directly by Spirit, and doing anything else simply makes no sense. To me, that is death: to know who I am, to know why I am here, and to move away from that in order to play the human game of madness. And for what?
I continue listening…
Yes, my child, you must not only say that you trust me, you must actually give yourself fully into trust. You must enter the sincere practice of faith. You will only come to know that I will make sure you are well taken care of if you allow me to show you that. And in order to do that, you must let go of your incessant desire to control things. Both ways are not possible. Either you continue to own control, and accept the outcome, or you give that control to me. And surrender in trust. In this trust, and in cultivating an authentic sense of faith, you will come to know what is true.
And so, I sit with the night, and explore what it feels like in the body to surrender into faith. To Her ~ to the Divine Mother, to Pachamama, to Life, to Spirit. It doesn’t come easily, and it is clear that the control I exert over my life, and over as much as I can influence, is not merely a mental construct, but a full body tension. My practice is to sit with that, and to dismantle it, release it, giving it all over to faith that She will carry me.
