The Path of Surrender is an art of divine simplicity . . . And, one of the most difficult on-going tasks asked of us. This can be a challenging subject to understand with the intellect and at least equally as challenging to learn to live as a way of life, if you haven’t yet tasted her elixer. And yet, so much that we seek comes from a place of surrender. Freedom. Love. Peace. Self-Acceptance. Self-Love. Well-being. Generosity. Connection. This doesn’t mean surrender works alone or that we become pacifistic in all of our life. It actually requires great discipline, but a different sort of discipline! It is most often the final act of aligning and manifesting what our heart and soul truly long for. Well worth the initial challenges, yes?
So, before we can really dive into Surrender, it’s also important that we get to know Will. In this first part of our exploration, let’s dive into the basic concept of Surrender from,
- the intellect
- the qualities of our world as seen through the prisms of masculine & feminine energies
- the old world paradigm and the new world we’re entering into.
For thousands of years, we’ve been living in a paradigm of predominantly masculine energies. This is governed by the mind, intellect, conceptualizing. It fosters the activities of striving toward goals. It’s understood linearly, from point A to point B. The mind needs to know, to be able to explain things logically, to be able to prove, and functions with black & white thinking.
There are many ways this functioning is necessary to navigate the material world in which we live. This left brain ensures we know how to balance our check books, bank accounts & budgets. It helps up to plan trips, with itineraries. If you’re planning an event, it makes sure you can manage the logistics. In the medical field, for instance, science makes strides by what it is able to prove. While we need this functioning, obviously, it has also overstepped many of its bounds. And it’s being in charge of our lives, has had a hay-day that is winding down and will be sharing space, more equally, with the feminine.
The force through which our masculine or yang energies work, is through our Will. With focus, attention, intention, we exert our will onto the outer world. This is represented by the right side of our body, also by the element of the sun and heat. A great way of exploring this is by practicing a simple exercise. Make a fist & squeeze. Notice to what degree you’re squeezing your hand into the fist. How much pressure are you exerting? How long can you sustain that level of exertion with ease? How does it feel as you hold the tension?
This is an example of how we go through a good portion of our lives. If we exert too much will, we find ourselves exhausted easily. Stress and tension build up in the body, mind, or emotions. If we don’t exert any will, we can barely clench the fist or at best it’s a limp clench. This can reflect in our lives as lethargy or stagnation. When we use our attention with consciousness, clench a fist with a medium amount of pressure, this can be sustained comfortably. When the fist tires, we let go. Release. Surrender.
Will & Surrender are a mated couple. They dance together, they embrace in lovemaking, they give and receive, contract and release, from their mutual love, devotion, respect. While the masculine moves us out into the world in action, the feminine returns us home within to integrate, deepen, cultivate wisdom. They go hand in hand. They are our inner Sacred Masculine & Sacred Feminine, which when equally honored & balanced, create harmony.
Yet, we are most familiar with the quality of egoic Will. An expression of the masculine, who has lost his divinity, so to speak, because he has ruled over, subjugated, and usurped the Sacred Feminine qualities. Hence we witness violence at every turn, both in the news and as ‘entertainment.’ We compete with one another continuously and ourselves, in the work place, in sports, in fun and games. The ongoing desire for bigger, better, more has sold us a false belief in scarcity. We have stress as the leading underlying cause of the numerous health crisis’s. We’ve rationalized the acceptance that we need to triumph over nature with our man-made devices to exert control in a myriad of ways, and Mother Earth is continually being assaulted in numerous ways, negating the very real fact that we need Her for our survival.
Control is one of the most abused actions of an out-of-whack masculine force. Control of people. Control of animals. Control of information. Control of freedom. Control of money. One of the most devastating & horrific forms of abuse of control can be seen in human trafficking, which has become one of the most lucrative forms of business over the last decade and yet, it’s still flying under the radar of the general public. We see all of the above ‘controls’ playing our loudly on our world stage.
Our minds are on overdrive with insomnia now effecting large portions of the population. Whether this is from the constant use of technology, seeking entertainment, relief, or the never-ending stream of distractions, it is a symptom of a society that is highly over stimulated. The ramp of the Sympathetic Nervous System (active/masculine state) has diminished our ability to be nourished by the Para-Sympathetic Nervous System (receptive/feminine state).
Many mornings on my daily walks, I witness a large proportion of fellow walkers/runners listening to their ear-bugs, as they are spending time in nature. I understand the desire to listen to music, pod-casts, lectures, etc. and we are fortunate to have these options. My comment is less about the symptom of stimulus, and more about a lack of awareness around the habit. How have we become so greatly desensitized to the subtle joys in life, such as listening to the morning songs of the birds? When did we buy into a constant frenetic way of filling our brain with constant noise, which we’re learning from experience is depleting us in so many ways, yet we find it hard to change?
These are aspects of the intense imbalances at hand today. The wonderful news is that there is a change that is rising. As most of us have heard, we are entering the time of the Divine Feminine!
It is with Her Love, Her healing salve, Her purification of heart, body, and mind, that we will find a path back to harmony.
It also means a new challenge is upon us. This challenge is the willingness to approach the Art of Surrender. While it’s the cool breeze at the end of a dry hot day, though we will wish for the gentle, tenderness of her caress, we also fight it. It is frightening to realize that with the release of the load we’ve carried, it will bring with it deep change. This isn’t the change that we will manage and control or even know the outcome. It’s dangerous territory to the ways in which we’ve been living, functioning, thinking, being, for longer than most of us know.
But, this time of surrender is just as much in our bones and breath, as that of the will. The scales will need to tip to the other side of where they’ve been, in order to balance out. It is She, who will soothe the heat of the masculine shadow, with divine teachings of Compassion, Truth & Love. Are you ready to embark on her magical path of Surrender?
With Love,
Lotus
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Lotus Lindley 