Part IV - the hot/cold cup or the secret of right timing

print by jan skacelik
Now, sometimes a cup of tea is too hot and sometimes a cup of tea is too cold and sometimes a cup of tea is just right and often we can't tell one cup of tea from the other cup of tea until we drink it.

Timing is important with tea.

Timing is about cycles.

Remember that great song from the Byrds (and Pete Seeger before them) - Turn, Turn Turn (you can thank me later for putting this song into your head - it's that freaking good) - which is actually taken word for word from the Bible.

We can feel the truth of these words in our hearts.

Life isn't static. Life doesn't support us getting stuck (and this is great news because when we feel stuck we know that we will eventually - depending on the speed of the cycle we are in and our own natural inclination toward stickiness - be unstuck). Change is what expansion is all about and contrast creates the impulse for change and so we get cycles.

Stuff changes.

We psychically detach from what we need to leave before we physically leave. We can't reattach - things have shifted and we don't fit anymore.

It's our inability to reattach that let's us know this is a real deal thing.

*One word (well 68 words actually) about this detachment and what has happened on our planet in the last couple years - lots of karma has fallen away as the planet has ascended - the dropping of this karma has created a lot of loss in people's lives as things we are no longer connected to fall away -

this is meant to feel like we have lain down some heavy baggage but sometimes we get scared and try to hold onto this stuff that is leaving - a person, a job, a way of life. But we can't stop a cycle we can only ride it out. Whatever we have lost we need to know that life loves us so much it has created this space for us. I have a friend who told me she even lost her attachment to her children for a while and it scared the hell out of her - what she really lost was the karmic connection from her stuff to their stuff. There is nothing to fear here - real stuff can never be lost and love is the real stuff.*

Sometimes with things like marriages and businesses we cycle within the relationship and come back together in a new way, but the cycle happens.

We can't fight the cycle

(it will leave us bruised and battered and calling 911 in the middle of the night if we try)

it will leave us empty.

This empty feeling just means there is no more for us in this place.

This is the feeling that has fueled every single thing that has ever happened since the beginning of time - this is the feeling that we ignore at our own peril - the very expansion of the universe is at stake!

But, because we have forgotten that we are here for expansion - because we have forgotten why we are here and who we really are - we say, "what do I do next? I don't know what to do!".

We don't really need to know what to do next before we move out of an empty place and what we really mean when we think this is that we want to know what is going to happen next. We want to see what's ahead. We want to know that we will have the fairy tale happy ending we were promised and we want it in writing and notarized.

We want to know what is going to happen before we make a move and that just isn't the way this game is played.

If we could sit down right now and watch a movie about the rest of our life; a movie where we could see every challenge, disaster and triumph ahead for us (all of these things are kind of the same to our soul which only requires expansion and doesn't care so much what kind of package this expansion comes wrapped in) - what do we think would happen?

Well, we are only human so we would probably try to avoid the challenges and we would certainly try to avoid the disasters and it would be this very avoiding that would not allow the contrast in our life to create the triumph - in short we'd fuck it all up.

And this is how we screw up our children by the way - when we do things for them and try to make things easy for them; when we take away their contrast we don't allow meaningful desires to be born within them - this has created an entire generation of people who have no idea what the hell they want to do. This isn't the way the game is played.

The truth is we know what we do next because what we do next is always the same thing ... what we do next is stop being in the world we are in. 

We make a move. And yes, this can be a small move - we are totally allowed to make baby steps as long as we keep on making them. And yes, this can be multiple moves in multiple directions because we make our own rules with this. 

The actual decision we make is never as important as the reasons we make the decision because it is the reasons we make the decision that create the outcome!

Our life is created from our decisions as surely as our bones and blood and muscles. The song about the broken, crying woman with "years of bad decisions running down her face" is ... well, freakin' scary. We don't want to be this woman and we truly, truly can't be this woman if we make our decisions for the right reasons - we don't have to make the right decisions, because there are no right decisions! There are only the decisions we make.

Many years ago hubs and I separated. I moved into an apartment with our daughter. We didn't know what we were going to do next we only knew that we had both reached the place of empty at the same time. This is a precarious place for a marriage to be. We were scared. We had another human being, the most important human being on the planet to us, depending on us to make the right decision and we had no idea what the hell we were doing.

After a few months of baby steps in different directions we went away for the weekend together.

We both knew our reasons for whatever decision we made were what would create the outcome we both wanted (which was everyone's happiness) - we both knew instinctively that either decision - to move together or to continue to move apart would eventually create everyone's happiness - so we focused on our reasons and could see that our reasons to move together (which included the happiness of that most important human being and the fact that we still loved each other) were much better reasons than our reasons for moving apart.

We started a new cycle together.

If we had divorced (and if the reasons had been there for that we would have) - then that would have been the right decision and we would have made that work. We would have all been OK. Things would be different for all of us now and we would be in different places, but we would still all be OK - there wouldn't be "years of bad decisions running down our faces", we wouldn't be second guessing ourselves, because we would know that our focus on the reasons would have created our best outcome.

This right timing cup is getting pretty wordy even for me and we haven't talked about the "striking while the iron (or teacup in this case) is hot" kind of timing that creates luck and we will in Part V.

xo

6 comments

Sherry said...

I love that song too, Cat because it portends all kinds of possibilities.

But, I do not believe in karma or the planets in alignment or making space for what we want.

Life is messy and things happen, both good and bad when you least expect them. At least that's what happens in my life time and again.

I'm just trying to roll with it. :)

Anonymous said...

how stupid that weather you get divorced or not it is the right decision - I don't think your child would think that - stupid

Catherine Ivins said...

you don't have to believe in karma or planetary alignments or holding space - rolling with it is always a good idea. I don't think the space is for what we want - it's more for what the planet needs .. which is more people living their passion and I guess that kind of means having what they want so maybe I do mean that in a longtail kind of way - ack. karma in astrology is more like little ties to things that have been left unfinished there is no good and bad, not like you do something bad and bad happens - life isn't judging us ever - I have to play that song today - a perfect song for a cold day! xo

KJ said...

Personally, I embrace change.

You are right, love is what matters. Not only who we love but who loves us. Everything else takes second place.

KJ said...

hmm... just read the comment above about either decision on divorce being the right decision.

I completely understood what you were saying. There were good and valid reasons for divorcing or not divorcing and no matter what decision you made it was going to be the right one because it would set you on a path that would bring both challenges and joys and that in the end you would find a way to meet your needs.

There are many wiser decisions I could have made in my life but I don't think had I made those wiser decisions I would be any happier than I am today- I would have just had a different happiness. I will, however, admit that my struggles are what have made me content- I am not rich, but I am warm, I am surrounded by things I love, I have friends and love in my life, I have loved deeply and lost. I know that I need a partner not for happiness or contentment or to be whole but to have someone to share it all with.

We choose and in making that choice then have to choose again to be right with that decision or to be bitter and regretful.

Catherine Ivins said...

"We choose and in making that choice then have to choose again to be right with that decision or to be bitter and regretful." that's said much better than I did - it's us looking back at a decision and judging/labeling it as a wrong/bad decision that makes it a wrong/bad decision and keeps us stuck ... xo