Uncertain
Here we are...the end of 2020. I’ve been taking time during this winter solstice, in the days between Christmas and New Years, where time doesn’t really exist, to reflect on the past 365 days since our last Christmas spent in Uncertain, TX.
We had no idea just how much that word “uncertain” would be used to describe the year ahead of us. Soon we would be thrown in the midst of great uncertainty as the entire world united over an invisible threat that disrupted the false control we think we have over our lives. So my thoughts, if you care to listen, and if not just go skip on down to the photo journal below... This whole sacred pause moment that we got invited into was about coming home to ourselves. It was about getting our house in order. It was about realigning with the truth of what it is we are supposed to be about. What it is that we are really being called to. The truth of ourselves and the truth of our calling. We all needed the reset, wether we know it or not.
Now for me and others out there who struggled and have been struggling, this has been a tough year. Those of us with anxiety naturally, who have a depression naturally, in other words it has a tendency to show up for us naturally, it was intensified! Highlighting the innate need and desire to consistently come back to our eternal well! What a gift! The mandate to go home and stay home had everything to do with the ability to tap into our inner wisdom. To practice tapping into our sacred source relationship, God, or whatever source is for you, and our ability to develop a new capacity of being able to listen and engage that guidance and that wisdom. I’m saying this because the biggest lesson I learned in 2020 is that I am disempowered when I expect that which is outside of me, that which I cannot control, to deliver me. We will NEVER be delivered by anything outside of ourselves. No president, no vaccine, no government, no human or possession, those are all uncertain. Only faith in my relationship to source, the creator of the universe that dwells within mw, can I be delivered. When I touch this place of holy communion, I am automatically healed, when I touch this place I am automatically renewed! I am back in the source of love and grace, which is my power. And it is then and only then that my creativity can blossom, flourish and flow because I am in union with my power! It’s here where I’m nurtured and cared for! So regardless of our circumstances or our situations, we can jump into the mysterious river of uncertainty and find courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear and access the riches that live inside of us! And our opportunity to tap that, get quiet with that, to get in stillness with that, whether you sit on a meditation pillow or you walk in nature, or pray in a temple or do yoga or you just breathe, whatever you do that enables you to suspend this reality and come into the truth of ourselves, that is where the riches are, the fruits of the spirit!
“Uncertain, it’s not on the way to anywhere. You either got to know where you are going or be lost to find it. ”
Skipped town along with the sunset and a car load of provisions. We have never spent Christmas with just us two, our little family. Again, we found ourselves without a plan, our next few days very uncertain. We had a desire to find a vessel with which to explore this swampy cypress forrest. We called over to Johnson’s Ranch and the voice on the other end of the line was that of Billy Carter, a well known local legend. We asked if he would even be open on Christmas day, and the only reply was a nonchalant “prolly”. Folks around here tend to be on their own schedule.
Sure enough at Johnson’s Ranch, on Christmas morning, Billy greeted us with his trusty hound, Carlos, by his side and Coors beer in hand. His establishment is the oldest inland marina in the country, a bayou boathouse with floors that have bowed badly from past floods. Filled with dusty nicknacks, old photographs, fishing gear and beer, decked out with poinsettas for Christmas. He rented us a motor boat for the day, gave us a few navigating tips and with hardly any training sent us off into the bayou with only a map to guide us.
Bryan played captain and figured out how to boat like a real skipper in only a short time. We would get a bit lost or get caught in shallow water, avoiding sunken logs while navigating the boat roads. Bryan and I find ourselves in situations like this quite often, starting before we are ready. But now we have a new set of skills and were shown the most spectacular beauty while cruising down the Big Cypress Bayou.
Puttered up and down Government Ditch lined with ancient cypress trees dripping in Spanish moss, the strange “knees” of their roots rise above the ground and give off an alluring yet spooky vibe. Our new friend Billy Carter likes to say, “This is mother nature’s favorite place. Heaven and home and little bit of hell too.”
How can this place be Texas? It’s so unfamiliar to me. I could hardly breathe as the golden light turned the horizon into a painting. We chased blue herons and white egrets along with that golden sunlight. We would stop and float in stillness listening to life... the hum, a rustle, the flap of a hawk wing in the thicket right next to us. Capturing magical moments through our lens, feeling as if we had left all of Texas behind and entered into a mystery as a bird flew by or the filtered light cast shadows on a house set on stilts and illuminated our imagination.
Here in this complicated maze, nature is telling us all how it might look if our kind had never existed. We learned this area is a product of the ice age. Glaciers shunted species over huge distances and when the ice retreated, it left behind an extraordinary confluence of environments. At one point three groups of native Americans shared the 40 miles of trails and waterways to get lost in but never fully lived here. We also learned humans who came to this unruled place before us wanted to be lost, convicts fleeing prison, deserters avoiding the Civil war. We most certainly expected lostness as part of our journey in this extraordinary place.
Docked at golden hour as the sunset on the swamp. We had given up life in the city and were letting Uncertain take its hold on us.