Gaining Control by losing control. How does this make sense?

We have all heard of that expression "one day at a time." I am getting an exercise in that right now as I continue to live where I live without a lease and without knowing what will happen until someone buys the property and announces their intentions. So each day I get up and give thanks for the opportunity to live here and for having another day of life. Whether I get to stay or have to move will be a decision that is out of my hands at this time. I appreciate each day for what it is and I do what I need to do every day.

It takes a lot of courage to trust that things will work out without knowing the answers to all our questions. It also takes a lot of courage to be open to possible developments that we had not anticipated. Actually, doing some research now is revealing some patterns that I had only been vaguely aware of before. At this moment I am keeping those discoveries to myself until I see how they all add up and how they may influence future choices. Suffice it to say that I am making discoveries because these factors are causing me to research and reconsider what I know and what I prefer.

Face it, it can be unnerving when we have a plan and it unfolds in a different manner than we expected because it took a different turn.

We all like it when things go according to our plans. But sometimes, it just happens that someone else makes a decision or takes an action that sets in motion a chain of events and next thing you know, your schedule has changed and your plans have changed.

Be patient. The changes work out just fine. Just like that old saying about when one door closes and another opens.

Sometimes we gain control when we lose control. Here is a simple example of a fun way to experience this. I used to lead drumming circles and still use the drums with people who want a different kind of meditation experience. By just listening and following what we hear, we feel the music and our minds are just following that track. Malidoma Some, an African drummer and shaman whom I had the pleasure of encountering says that "a person who has trouble with drumming has trouble with listening."

Consider that for a moment. When we become more aware and pay attention to the signs we pick up from all around us, we find new paths. We learn melodies that we did not know. Fresh thoughts come to us. And we learn to work with others more beautifully, more harmoniously. We play together, listening to each other, we find a groove and that frees our mind to travel. And we would never have discovered those paths had we not opened our ears to listen.

So you are not drumming, you say? All drumming comes back to the first drum, our heartbeat, our breath. As we are more observant and aware of our surroundings, we perceive in ways that were once not visible to us. Hidden in plain sight is also revealed by listening to things that we have not been tuning into before.

It's also interesting how sometimes pieces of information come to us that help us make decisions that we were not even searching for. Guess all you can say is that the guiding influences in our life must have intended for us to have those, whether we call those guiding influences God, Goddess, spirit guides, ancestors, angels or something else. So here we are. Once again making a decision that veers off our original course. Is that bad? No. Making changes often leads to finding a better way to do things.

If we allow things to come to us, they will. Sometimes not being certain will get us where we want to be, except that the process of discovery reveals that we are in a place that we did not know we wanted to be but it is working out well although it was unexpected.

And we can gain control by losing control.



* A note about the photos. The image on top is the 4 of Wands from Ciro Marchetti's Tarot of Dreams which is one of the decks I read with all the time. The bottom photo is Layne Redmond, one of my teachers in the world of drumming.