I do not understand the mystery of grace–only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. – Anne Lamott
I’m writing this post at the tail of end of 2017. It was one hell of a year, one that many of us would choose to forget. And, yet, for some, and I include myself among them, it has opened us up to grace. I for one, never conceived that I would not just acknowledge the existence of grace, but bow to it. As I am now….
Profound change, if you recall from one of my previous Cacao Journals, comes in three ways, according to Arkan Lushwala, an indigenous spiritual and ceremony leader: 1) a gift from spirit, or what we might call, grace; 2) the mystery of the black jaguar, who “destroys the prisons where we feel safe and comfortable so we wake up;” and 3) the will of the heart or Munay, which has us “constantly seeking encounters with the sacred sources that support our awakening.”
2017 was the year of the black jaguar to be sure; its claws lashing out and its tail sweeping everything clear, forcing us to accept change and transform ourselves. This clearing out awakened our hearts actively like a lightning bolt asking more of us and reconnecting us to who we truly are. For many, we sought out sacred experiences by coming together in community and in ceremony, and through inner reconnection. We began the journey home.
And, at some point along the way, you may have asked yourself like I did, “Where were the moments of grace?” Perhaps they still surrounded us, but we could not notice them until we had fully surrendered to what is and to who we truly are.
Grace is ever present. All that is necessary is that you surrender to it. – Ramana Maharshi
After much inner struggle, I surrendered and found myself in that place where grace is ever present. It took my breath away. While I still stumble on the path home, hit my head and forget about grace for a moment, I come back to its presence, and it gives me strength to continue the journey.
I believe that 2018 will be a year of grace. It will require seeing the gifts, the blessings of it, everywhere. It will require gratitude. It will require devotion. This may feel like a heavy responsibility, but it’s actually the opposite. It is a lightening, not of responsibility, but of the feeling that we are somehow carrying a burden and can’t quite make it home.
It’s in the letting go that we find our burdens lifted. It’s in the letting go that we find the light and the lightness of grace. It’s in the letting go that we find ourselves home again. Wishing you all a Happy New Year, full of endless grace.
