I don’t know
a friendly opening into new ways of relationship
When every moment is a bridge, we live in the wealth of uncertainty. We don’t need to control it. We’re not trying to get to the other side. We’re both here and there. (Walking is a bridge; Moment is map; texture of arcs)
I don’t know anything.
When I first I wrote this essay, I wrote this line as: I know who I am and why I’m here. I don’t know anything else.
Later I heard my soul say: No, you don’t. You wouldn’t be able to connect with me if you did.
Hmmm.
I came back here to this page to show you my revision. This is mostly where I live, in the re-seeing and re-weaving of things.
Words often flow through me with a cadence that moves my pencil in a realm parallel to my thoughts. Most of what I “say” stretches me as I say it and invites me to see it anew.
It feels true to say that I know who I am and why I’m here. It also feels true to say that I’ll never know who I am and why I’m here.
Ah, the exquisite beauty in the simplicity of overlap between two (seemingly opposite) things.
I have many thoughts, theories, questions, practices, rituals, and stories that hold me and guide me. And… I choose to be in continuous relationship with them. They are not known to me. I live with them and create with them in wildflower fields of devotion and awe.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. (Annie Dillard)
As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul. (Hermes)
A great gift from any adult to a child, it seems to me, is to love what you do in front of the child. (Fred Rogers)
I hold these threads of wisdom as true. And… I do my best to live into them each day as oceans to explore. I trust that I will never know them. They are alive as I am alive as everything is spiral.
We think we know a lot about children, school, what’s needed for learning, what we must do to lead and invite transformation into the systems we live and work within.
What we think we know gets in the way of what we want to transform.
We prevent the possibility of our promises.
We’ve all made promises… to ourselves, our families and communities, for children and a better world.
What promises have you made? What do you think you know that’s limiting their possibility?
Find (in your mind) something you hold as known.
See the shape of it, feel the fullness of its form.
Hear how you name it and the stories you tell.
Pause.
Say aloud: I don’t know you.
Repeat these words again and again.
Sit with the linger of their vibration.
Notice.
We’re all learning.
We chose to be here in this moment of mess and collapse, this turning point of collective transformation.
To live as a bridge of here-and-there requires practice and slow, loving attention.
We’re surrounded in support. Everything we need is here.
“I don’t know” is a friend to guide us into a new relationship with how we show up and co-create with the world.
We release what we know and find surprise, delight, and awe everywhere.
in love, Melissa
What we think we know gets in the way of what we want to transform.
I loved this recent essay from Alex Elle: Women Leaving: On Liberation, love, and letting go
And this powerful post from Gregory Pettys: Remembering How to Bless: a poem for falling glaciers
Tracee Stanley’s new book, Living Ritual: Infuse Each Day With Purpose and Spirit, is out in the world. It’s beautiful and rich with exquisite practices to bring to your everyday life.
p.s.
Notice what you tell yourself about what you know about “I don’t know.” How you “already know this” and “already do this” as if knowing and not-knowing are fixed states of being or are personal practices you evolve “out of” once you “know better.” Hmmm.
