This I Believe: The Power of Mystery

Image and essay by Janet Grace Riehl, copyright 2014

Something’s happening. We can feel it. From the furthest reaches of the galaxy to a sub-atomic particle. That something is the constant, organic, mysterious change known as life.

And it’s happening faster. So we’d better get used to it,  and we’d better get good at it if we want to survive as a species and a planet. The big bang has come home. The bumper sticker “Think globally, act locally” might be expanded to: “Think galactically, act molecularly.” From protozoa to protean space explorations life is on the move. The times call for us all to become creators—to cooperate with the larger mystery and to co-create our lives in concert with something so vast and so deep we can never encompass it. We can only learn to be held and enfolded by it.

Transition has its seasons of darkness, shadow, and pain. We honor that. Life takes time with unexpected turns. We honor that. And in honoring that, strangely, burdens lighten. Then the meandering path through change yields rather than greets us with roadblocks.

The pace of change explodes as life reorganizes itself for the next mega-cycle. We are being made ready. Because ready or not, here it comes.

Luckily, we’ve been given longer lives. With this longer span of productivity comes the luxurious necessity of giving ourselves time to regroup. During the in-between times we prepare for the next act. The intermission and the entire act become a creative space. There’s time to digest information taken in during the first act, time to stretch, get a cup of coffee, and greet friends while we feel around on the inside to glimpse who we are in this moment as we prepare for the next ones.

So let’s get good at transition.

Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity—serendipitous coincidences—is part of the mystery. Reading these synchronous events is one of the skills in transition. Ordinary living becomes a source of magic with many messages. Things as simple as fortune cookies and the daily horoscope hint at our heart’s desire if we are open. Everything becomes an oracle to lead and protect us. We come to realize that we are surrounded by signs, symbols, and portents. We ourselves are ciphers in the eye of the sacred storm.

There is choice within destiny. Sometimes destiny speaks in a thunderous voice and we know we are being chosen rather than doing the choosing. Events come into our lives that beg to be used, and that beg to use us. And, sometimes, destiny speaks in an off-stage whisper.

In order to slip and dive through transition we must improvise. We must learn to live as a jazz artist plays, as a great chef cooks, as great lovers exchange pleasure.

The map of mystery limns the Terra Incognita beyond the edge of the world. If only we can appreciate and cooperate with the mystery without getting lost in it!