◎ Kairos Ripening

Last night felt like one of those nights where you're in bed but up with a friend or beloved, talking in the dark because you don't want to miss a moment with them. I wasn't talking to anyone, but it felt the same inside. I was awake for at least a couple hours longer than usual, unsure of what to do with myself, but not stressed or anything. I eventually did sleep, with plenty of hours to spare, after I was able to convince myself that the growing feelings I have had over the past few days would still be there if I was to get some rest.

I was reminded of some of my older writings, and how sometimes I have had similar thoughts, or used similar metaphors, and I am certain that each time I've felt something akin to this it was not incorrect, but that like applying layers of paint or ink, or wandering through a labyrinth, one crosses the same spaces, each time unfolding in a unique way even though it appears to be the same corner. 

I do feel that whatever fractal bend I have passed, it is the final fold of one enormous flower that I have been walking... for perhaps as long as I have been alive. I think that's why it's significant. All the other petals, curves, and overlappings were part of a two year arc, a five year arc, a seven, fifteen, twenty-five... as each bend was passed they all had some shape in common, all resolved something before it, and that's where I am now... at the simultaneous entrance and exit of the first flower of my life, having learned or unlearned everything that this arc needed. And now I am just a flower in God's field, looking up at the sun in wonder, as if having opened for the first time. 

Again, I have no idea what to do now. There was a time... maybe ten years or so ago now, where I realised that life was not just about fighting, or running from something, it was about reaching out in love, too. At that time, I only knew one, and had no idea where to start for the other. So I started reading... I started my journey. And then I learned how to reach out in love, and try to move toward it... and I've done that too. And there is nothing that says that the world doesn't go on needing a balance of those skills and lessons gleaned through them, and since those times... But I confess that I have never experienced this stillness. 

I remember the first time I knew Joy. Last year, God let me know Glory. Today I know stillness. What will I know tomorrow? Does it always have to hurt so much? Or will things get easier each time, as there is less to mortify? These are questions that are both rhetorical and serious. And yet, none of them really pull me. No one, no thing, is calling me. I could allow myself, of course, to fall backward into yearning, or running, because it is what I know, or remember, but I know fully that this is not the answer. The answer for me, at this time, until I am roused to movement by... a voice, perhaps... Is I will simply stay here. I will still sit with this strange and slightly uncomfortable, but brilliant gift.