Dancing with days
dazed into submission
by the wonder
that peels away when I still myself
In the midst of the mist
lies life
Awash with technicolour frenzy,
brimming with exuberance and endless
layers of detail
There are days
I'm dazed
Catatonic with overwhelm,
usually of my own doing
But in the midst of the mist
I find the daze of days
breathes me alive
If I choose
If I surrender
If I give away
the need to make any sense of it
In the midst of mist
lies every moment
ever lived
Every feeling
ever felt
It is in the midst
that I allow
clarity
to be
misty
To be wonderous
To be revered
Hello Hedge School,
There is great dissonance afoot in our world today. Collective overwhelm for all the senses. Sense itself is non sensical, folding in on itself the closer you look. Flashing across the screens in our hands and in our minds a collective dust storm of another event. Another doing. Another addition to the pile of non-sense.
These are misty times.
Mythic times, where transition is afoot.
We cannot see the next step but know the path lies waiting. Know the clarity will come.
Mythic Origins
Mist is revered in the myths of all cultures. It is a sign that change is coming.
In Irish mythology, mist is magical. Féth fíada or the "mist of the knower" was an invisibility cloak used by the Tuatha Dé Danann, a supernatural race who dwelled in the Otherworld. The mist was used to conceal their appearance from mortal men.
In Norse mythology, mist was a valkyrie. Female servants of Odin who looked for slain warriors on the battlefield or brought messages. They rode on winged horses and their armor would flicker light across the sky creating the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.
In Norway, when the mists roll off the mountains, they call it "trolsk." The land is considered enchanted.
There is magic afoot.
Courting the Dissonance
The mist we find ourselves feels thick. Thick enough to strangle our collective breath. Thick enough to compress our chest under the weight of it all. But this dissonance cries out for courtship. Cries out for relationship. We don't need to make sense of it. We just need to revere it.
Revere the fact that non-sense is not defeat but a surrender to the bigger picture. What we select to see paints our worldview. But it is only one worldview. One vantage point. Deep in every moment is a lifetime of moments. A lifetime of selections to paint new worldviews. But instead we lean to the familiar. Lean into old patterns of moving in the world. Moving with the world.
In the mist, reverie is the path forward.
Reverie, from the Old French "reuerye" means "wild conduct, frolic, rejoicing." Rejoicing in the moments that paint us alive gives us hope. Gives us a spring in our step.
When we can't make sense of it all, maybe all we need to do is rejoice in the non-sense of it all. Knowing, as I mentioned in my last post, is a grip of the intellect. Surrender to the greater intelligence that it is all perfect. All non-sensical. And that is just fine. Gripping onto knowing as a lifebuoy is fraught with danger. Reverie is a much more joyful existence.
Rejoice in the next step.
And the next step.
And the next.
Imagine them as your first and last steps.
Oh what joy that would bring!
The mist is magical. There are greater things happening here that we cannot grasp.
Our only task is to court the dissonance. Feel into our senses. Find the reverie as we do.
And trust that the mist lifts.
It always does.
For this too, shall pass.
Till next time,
Steve
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9th_f%C3%ADada
https://mythus.fandom.com/wiki/Valkyrie
https://www.etymonline.com/word/reverie
https://www.traveller.com.au/viking-heritage-norway-myth-mist-and-enchantment-10mp3f
Music - Ofelia's dreamBenjamin Tissot
Image - Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash
Finding The Reverie In The Mist