Unexplained Phenomena

my current contemplation

I week ago I sat in on a Soul’s Journey group at the local Recovery Cafe. The weekly topic was unexplained phenomena. Everyone else shared a story ranging from experiences with that blessed hand of Grace some call coincidence to seeing dead people.

I am not particularly loquacious these days and have found talking about myself to be dis-regulating at the moment. I did however share a comment:

“I pray that we never explain the unexplainable. The very reason it is unexplainable is that the moment we try to explain it, we leave the territory of it, create a sense of separation from it and it slips back into elusiveness.”

I began to contemplate the potential harm in naming and explaining things, especially in personal relationships. As I interact with others I witness my quality of attention, which is not full presence but a good foot towards it. I realize that the majority of our time together is spent with my psyche trying to explain them into a form that fits, or doesn’t, my world views. My mind is subtly tracking rather experiencing them.

I never really know the beloved person in front of me because they have been explained, named. They explain themselves as we meet and deepen to establish common ground, bonding and intimacy. Then it evolves into more textured types of explaining but with a little less pizazz as we have now become familiar- another mini death sentence for presence. Alongside I try to explain them through my own limited self understanding, my needs, my fears and conditions.

Do we really know the people we love? Is it really love as love is unconditional, unexplainable and quite phenomenal. Yes and no.

The truth is we are an elaborate presentation of unexplained phenomena. There are 800 cazillion shapeshifting cells in a constant dance with stimuli from all directions that all come together to form this body-mind complex.

Each cell in our body is wired for freshness, in multiple phases throughout our short lives. The saying we can never set foot in the same river twice essentially holds true for our entire being. So why does the body become such a stubborn mule on the healing path?

One main reason is that once we name, diagnose and explain we fold ourselves into a wrinkle in time if our explanations gets lodged in our identity, which is often the case. Our bodies are made of matter. Matter is dense. It is the slowest moving substance on the healing path. Consider how long it takes weather to shape stone.

Another primary reason is that we have mostly disregarded the phenomena behind the dance of life and narrowed ourselves into a finite identity. Healing requires a reclamation of this dance. But healing dictates you dance it, you don’t explain it.

Spontaneous healing and expression have become a rarity when in actuality we are designed for efficient repair, regeneration and boundless creativity. When the energy is allowed to move, shape shift and engage its own intelligence the healing happens. We trap the energy by overanalyzing and over diagnosing, solidifying it with our inability to look at it from a perspective of wonder and witness before making a move to “help”.

Explaining too soon erodes some of the essential magic from Life. Without maintaining the mystery we amputate creativity, intelligence and imagination. At the center of the unexplained lives the ache that threatens to rip us in half if we do not express it. It is the source of individual genius and mind bending art. It is also the source of illness, especially mental, if it gets trapped for too long in the explaining mind.

There is a difference between wisdom rising out of the pure present experience and seeking to explain something in order to uphold the illusion of safety or any sort of identity structure. It is agitating to the modern human to stand ground, witness and allow ourselves to feel what is present. Instead we wrestle most sensations to the ground in various ways, in fear of losing control, and miss the healing wisdom they have to offer. I’ve eaten a lot of dirt and expect to eat more as integrating this awareness takes time.

Early native, animist and spiritually rooted cultures stood this ground. They knew without having to know. They left it all alone and let it guide them. They lived and let live. They danced instead of wrestled. The apparitions were a part of the great wonder as much as the birds in the sky. All was included as a part of Life, left to its own natural devices. Above all, and what is gravely lost, is they listened through a posture of inner stillness. This kindled an awareness about the nature of life that can only come by way of experiencing rather than explaining. It is sovereignty in its highest form.

It is spirituality in its purest form. The longest pathless path there is home. Walk it with me? Although I have everything within me, a hand to hold can soften the inevitable stumbles.

Continue seeking to explain something and we move further away from the truth of it. We seek a solution for everything and if there is no solution, no explanation, then we tend to disregard it completely. We cast whole people, Universal wisdoms, and parts of ourselves to the fray and it creates loops of anxiety and suffering.

In this blessed material, dual world we do need guardrails and to form some identity as a navigation tool. It is a critical part of growth in our formative years to establish an overall sense of safety and belonging. Yet this must be mostly dismantled in our latter years in order to heal, evolve and return to our true nature- mostly because our true nature was never cultivated. It’s an inescapable paradox while in an human body.

I will say that I am very happy that someone explained red lights and that Mrs Eddy, the famous substitute teacher from my youth who was struck by lightning, explained (along with science of course) lightning. I know not to run through either of them. And I love knowing the names of my plant allies. Yet, I limit my interaction with them by “knowing” them. I also limit my own primordial intuitions and senses.

The truth is that there is infinitely more unexplained phenomena than not or we would not be. Everyone and everything is always, in every moment, in the most pure essence, an unexplained phenomena. Walk by a tree and try not to see a tree as it has been explained to you. It’s a trip without the psychedelics. Just a little food for thought today. But not too much thought. ;)

My prayer is that you remain unexplained, a perpetual phenomena to all who gaze upon you. But most of all to yourself, so that you can know each day what you are made of. May you remain open to the mystery and stand the ground of truth- another sort of paradox.

I pray that I remain in awe of you my love. That I stand in wonder and release my need to know why and how and what. May I surrender the names that I place upon you and face every corner within my heart that has not unfolded its fear of the unknown. Please empty me of all expectations except one - that we stay wed to the mysterious, ever changing phenomena in the natural order of all things.

Blessed be.

Shira

PS- how are you? I would love to hear from your heart.