I have chosen, after several months of ‘hiding’ to present a profound piece, not by me, but by: David Whyte.
HIDING is a way of staying alive. Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until
we are ready to come into the light. Even hiding the truth from ourselves
can be a way to come to what we need in our own necessary time. Hiding
is one of the brilliant and virtuoso practices of almost every part of the
natural world: the protective quiet of an icy northern landscape, the held
bud of a future summer rose, the snow bound internal pulse of the
hibernating bear.
Hiding is underestimated. We are hidden by life in our mother’s womb
until we grow and ready ourselves for our first appearance in the lighted
world; to appear too early in that world is to find ourselves with the
immediate necessity for outside intensive care.
Hiding done properly is the internal faithful promise for a proper future
emergence, as embryos, as children or even as emerging adults in retreat
from the names that have caught us and imprisoned us, often in ways
where we have been too easily seen and too easily named.
We live in a time of the dissected soul, the immediate disclosure; our
thoughts, imaginings and longings exposed to the light too much, too
early and too often, our best qualities squeezed too soon into a world
already awash with too easily articulated ideas that oppress our sense of
self and our sense of others.
What is real is almost always to begin with, hidden, and does not want to
be understood by the part of our mind that mistakenly thinks it knows
what is happening. What is precious inside us does not care to be known
by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.
Hiding is an act of freedom from the misunderstanding of others,
especially in the enclosing world of oppressive secret government and
private entities, attempting to name us, to anticipate us, to leave us with
no place to hide and grow in ways unmanaged by a creeping necessity for
absolute naming, absolute tracking and absolute control.
Hiding is a bid for independence, from others, from mistaken ideas we
have about our selves, from an oppressive and mistaken wish to keep us
completely safe, completely ministered to, and therefore completely
managed.
Hiding is creative, necessary and beautifully subversive of outside
interference and control. Hiding leaves life to itself, to become more of
itself. Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into
the light of a proper human future.
Excerpted from ‘HIDING’ in “CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and
Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words”
– 2015 © David Whyte:
The Journey of a thousand miles 