Exploring systems that work.

Spiritual

2 posts

Short: Chaos is Good

by David Hadwin
1 min read
short Spiritual Nature

Imagine you're in the middle of a storm, winds wailing around you so close that you can't see but 5ft in front of you. That's sometimes how our lives feel, we try to fix that by scheduling, controlling, and knowing what's ahead. We do that by planning. We try to plan how to get to what we want, and sometimes, that's great, but we also very often have limited imaginations and our stability keeps us in a mediocre life.

Do you know how a virus assembles in a cell? It makes each component of the virus separately, and they all just jiggle around the cell until they form together since each section is chemically attracted to the next. Out of the chaos, comes form.

Instead of looking at the storm as bad, imagine that instead it's building a path for you. If the winds weren't blowing, you'd know exactly what was in that direction...and it might be lacking. But as the winds blow, the stronger the winds blow, the more possibilities exist, the more chances there are for that direction that didn't even exist objectively before.

So, enjoy the storm, take this as a moment to reflect on what you want the storm to create for you, meditate on what your heart is calling for. Remember, the universe is on your side. Trust that, know that, and when the time is right, walk bravely in that direction.

Short: Knowledge and Separation

by David Hadwin
2 min read
short Spiritual

To know something, you need to separate it. To know you, I need to separate you from the crowd. It requires focus, and focus blinds us to everything else. Our left brain is known for naming, logicizing and understanding the world, but it does that through the act of separating it into pieces. Our whole existence has been built on that...

Genesis 2:16-17
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

Yet there exists another path, the path of connection, the path of being part of this co-creative dance that happens all around us. Not needing to understand it, not seeking to control it, but seeking its rhythm, its pace. This is the way of the right brain. It's a way of letting us feel the heartbeat of the universe. This is the way of plants, trees, animals and insects. Feeling, sensing, and acting.

Belying each of those worlds exists a gift that can be claimed for whomever wishes. On one hand, control, power, knowledge, and on the other, peace, surrender, guidance. Neither world is better or worse, they both exist within us. In every moment both worlds are active, it only matters which one we play with; which one serves our purpose.

I believe our culture has denigrated the right brain for far too long, and as it has atrophied, our world has suffered. We were made to carry these two worlds for a reason, we were made to control and know...while being connected and in flow.

On one hand you had the Native Americans, who lived with the land and helped it thrive. On the other Europeans who dominated it and discovered new technologies. One was filled with health, and spiritual abundance but lacked "material wealth" the other built on the backs of a sickly cast of workers utilizing nature for their masters means.

One had power. One had life.

Yang and Yin. Yin and Yang.

As cycles go, if Yang won out before and led to our technological boon a the expense of our connection to nature; to the universe; to God. I have a nagging suspicion that it will also lead us back full circle to living again with nature; back in the connection that gave us life...back in the arms of the Divine.

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