Swimming Upstream

It has been a rocky road for me over the past few days and my blog posts have reflected that. Yet, great gifts have been given to me, cradled within the challenges of the times.

I asked the All-That-Is to give me information about my internet connection - specifically why it wasn't working and when it would be working again. I was given the information quite quickly; it came through my own research into the problem and options for solving it.

My internet connection is based on wireless cell phone technology. It uses the cellular network that surrounds me here on Sutton Mountain. When I went down into the village last Wednesday, I couldn't believe how crowded and busy the grocery store and other stores were. Speaking with one of the cashiers at the grocery store, I realized that the village was absolutely full to overflowing with seasonal visitors, here for the skiing and snow-boarding on Sutton Mountain - here for that holiday week between Christmas and New Year's Day. All of those many visitors, or almost all of them, have cell phones and they were overloading the network. It was that simple. That's why my connection worked fairly well early in the mornings and became progressively more unstable and disfunctional as the afternoons came in. It was a traffic jam.

I was most decidedly swimming upstream throughout the experience, struggling and fighting against something that I couldn't clearly see or understand. It didn't require a fight, or a struggle. It required knowledge, patience and understanding.

Yet, it hasn't been just me swimming upstream over these past days. Many of us enter into conflict and struggle with ourselves, with our situations, when we do not need to do so. I had a difficult and heart-felt conversation with a woman I know who was devastated by the fact that her beloved son was breaking free and resisting all of her attempts to control his behaviour, at the age of 17. It's what they do at that age, needing to break free and find their own way, but it is very difficult for parents. She was swimming against the current, finding no strength within her to accept her son's transition. Fighting when she did not need to be fighting, she was wearing herself out and straining her relationship with her son to the breaking point.

It breaks my heart to say it, but I see my husband doing the same thing. He fights situations that do not require a fight. He swims upstream, expending all of his energies just to stay in the same place, because he cannot trust enough to let go and flow with the current.

Can I? I have released a great deal of emotion, of fear and anxiety, over the past days. I have realized some things, asked questions and answered them - more or less. Am I ready to let go? I am sometimes filled with trust and with the peace and love for All-That-Is that accompanies that trust. Can I be filled with trust all of the time? Can I remember to breathe, and breathe and breathe some more, so that I find my center and rest in pure, simple being?

I have to believe that I can. For I intend to do so. So I practice. I am practicing to be so filled with peace that I am in heaven on Earth, as I was mere days ago. I am practicing to be in my truth such that there is nothing that I fear. I am breathing deeply of my being on this Earth, in this body, with this consciousness, of this love. I am breathing acceptance, allowance and flow.

How about you? Can you flow with the stream, effortlessly, fearlessly? Can you trust so completely that you do not fight or struggle against anything? Are you swimming upstream? Are you fighting the current, expending your energies on a battle that cannot be won? Or are you letting go, letting your divine center guide you and provide for you.

I don't regret the struggles of these past days, for they have brought me to a greater understanding of what it means to be human. I had hidden away my deepest fears and now I have brought them out into the light of day, the light of my consciousness and released them. Now, I turn to the flow and feel it and let myself swing into it. And I move effortlessly through time and space, leaving behind the frenzied yes/no and right/wrong of duality.