BE-ing
We just returned from a visit with our youngest daughter and her fiancé in Colombia, South America. They are both teachers (5th and 6th grade respectively) at an established international school. In Barranquilla, where they teach, we were reminded that we were not in Central Illinois as the school yard was full of iguanas. Yes, these incredible dinosaur-like reptiles were sunning themselves on the school lawn, much like our squirrels inhabit the area around our homes and schools.
There are many stories of our time together, including the first week being a work week for us and the second week, vacation…hiking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and swimming in the Caribbean Sea making memories and enjoying each other’s company.
However, the story that wants to be told here is one of letting go of fear, surrendering into trust and being with what is. And this story is accentuated by the spiritual meaning of those iguanas basking in the school yard. In googling this, what stood out was a reminder to simply BE, to be still. To bask in the magnificent order of our world. To BE in the magnificence of the jungle during rainy season, the sun rising in the valley between the mountains, coffee beans growing wild on the side of a mountain, water falls abundantly releasing their energy in torrents, and ocean waves magnificent in their power crashing onto the shore…to BE witness to it all.
The more difficult things to BE with, were the challenges…to surrender to being on the back of a motorcycle during a torrential downpour at dusk with muddy ruts in narrow roads that clung to the side of steep drop offs in mountains, impassable for anything but motorcycle taxis and four-wheel drive vehicles, letting my fear wash away with the rain as I moved with the driver, navigating this terrain as if we were one. And the crashing waves of the Caribbean Sea that overwhelmed us as they captured us before releasing us to the shoreline gasping for breath.
However, the most intense experience was releasing fear and breathing in trust in a ceremony on the beach to connect with this place and time. Sitting in the early morning with smudge, rattle and a Peruvian talking stick that has been used in ceremony across the world. I closed my eyes as I shook the rattle and breathed deeply, calling in the seven directions in prayer, entering the world of spirit.
Soon I felt a presence enter my space, its breath on my hand by the rattle. Slowly I opened my eyes, my heart quickened as I discovered two pit bulls who had been scavenging on the beach were drawn to BE in this energy of spirit. First one, then the other taking in this moment with me. I held this space with awe. Noticing fear and relinquishing it to trust in the energy of spirit to connect. They ran off and I closed my eyes only to soon feel again the warmth of one of them breathing on my hand where I held the rattle. I opened my eyes and smiled in this trance state to see the other and just BE.
The world around us right now is full of challenges and fear is a common response as we meet these hardships. Yet there is something deep and powerful about meeting these challenges with a grounded sense of being...to learn how to navigate and BE present to it all.