02/01/2022
FOR A NEW YEAR BEGINNING
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BEGINNING well or beginning poorly, what is most important is simply to begin, but the ability to make a good beginning is also an art form, like picking up a new and unfamiliar musical instrument, the necessary first step involves taking the time to get a simple clear note, usually the clear note of forgiveness that comes in allowing yourself the right, at this stage, not to know anything at all: beginning anything well involves a courageous clearing away of the confusing, the cluttered and the complicated to find the beautiful, often hidden lineaments of the essential and the simply necessary.
Beginning is difficult, and our rituals of insulation and delay are a fine, ever-present measure of our reluctance in taking that first, simple, close-in, courageous step to reclaiming our happiness. Perhaps, because taking a new step always begins from the central, foundational core of the body and leads to an equally physical, radical outer simplification; where, suddenly, very large parts of us - parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years - parts of us still rehearsing the old complicated story, are suddenly out of a job.
There occurs in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us too afraid to participate or having nothing now to offer, are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma. In effect we must sit by the death bed of our own old, now departing wishes and come to the new step: learning that this new, less complicated self, and this very simple step, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead.
It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: thought: just sitting down to the desk, just picking up the instrument or the phone: which is why we so often prefer to live in an almost world, why we prefer the story to be more elaborate, our identities to be safely clouded by fear, why we want the horizon to remain always in the distance, the promise never fully and simply made, the essay longer than it needs to be and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.
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BEGINNING
From CONSOLATIONS:
The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press 2015
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BEGINNING
Photo © David Whyte
Mukilteo Ferry WA State
December 22nd 2017
