Taking a Sacred Pause: Navigating the Unknown
By Jamaica Stevens
There is the space between the known and unknown where “what has been” has not quite become “that which is yet to be”. This is where all creativity swells from, where we can access our deepest wisdom, where true transformation occurs.
The ancient symbol of the Orobourous, the snake eating its own tail, beautifully represents this timeless spiral dance of endings and beginnings. Just at the moment that the tail- or ending of a cycle- is about to be devoured by the mouth -or beginning of the next revolution- there is a spaciousness, a breath of the infinite between the defined.
This is the liminal, the Sacred Pause, where all potential resides. This is where we have a moment to integrate what we have just experienced, to harvest the rich lessons earned by taking the journey through previously uncharted territory. This is where we have the free will to choose something new, not bound to blindly repeating cycle after cycle without the opportunity to grow and evolve.
So often we rush quickly into the next thing, eager to move on from the uncertainty of the unknown into something solid. Or we try to hold tight to something that is shifting- which is like trying to keep a leaf from falling from a tree. This is because being in the unknown can be incredibly disorienting and uncomfortable.
Often endings can mean we have experienced loss, letting go, surrender. This may be a time of grief or uncertainty. It can be a fearful moment and the urge to resolve that tension has us hurry towards the ‘next thing’ or ‘hold on at all costs’. Of course, sometimes endings come as a relief, a victory, or an exciting step into something new. Either way, leaving behind what we have known, or identified with, or defined ourselves by can be daunting.
And yet. And yet there is an invitation right now to take a moment…… perhaps a slow intentional breath or perhaps a long sabbatical….. to drink deeply from the hidden waters of wisdom the liminal space offers. This is the only thing that can quench our longing for true understanding.
Lingering in the liminal can be nourishing, a time to renew and restore. To heal and to repair. To reflect and atone. To finally catch our breath after trying to keep up with the exhausting pace of our modern lives. This can be a time to lead with curiosity and listen to our heart. To explore what may seem unfathomable, to dream new dreams, scheme new opportunities or innovate new solutions. The liminal can be a time to muster the gumption to finally take a leap of faith and do what you’ve always wanted to do.
From the insight cultivated from such a time, we can make decisions from a place of consciousness. We can forge the new path or the next step with full access to our innate intelligence- truly only accessible when we get out of “fight or flight” survival mentality and source from a relaxed place of thriving.
That’s not to say that our next steps are guaranteed- nothing in life ever is. No one ever really knows where the journey will lead. And it changes as we choose our own adventures. Yet we can move forward, as we all must, with trust in ourselves. Trust that we know how to deeply listen to ourselves and that all along the way we can access that moment of stillness to continue sensing the right way forward.
We are in that moment, a collective Sacred Pause, a threshold where life as we knew it is changing before our eyes. Forced by global crisis, unprecedented in its scale of impact, we are experiencing a transition moment of which we can only move forward from. There is no “going back”.
The unknown impacts of this global pandemic may be on a spectrum of minor, but noticeable, changes to our systemic and cultural “norms”. Or it may be radical shifts to sectors of global society such as economics, manufacturing, medicine, travel, governance, food systems, supply chains, education, etc.
And that unknown has us wrought with fear, trying to hold on to life as we knew it or to speculate endlessly on outcomes to abate our need to control a situation that can only be navigated and mitigated as it emerges.
We are experiencing a collective Rite of Passage- a threshold moment of facing our own mortality and the potential “death” of our defined sense of societal selves and the systems that we exist within.
Although we might not have known these would be the circumstances we would find ourselves in, we have been arching towards a precipice as a species for quite some time. The more we expand our human influence and our ever burgeoning societies swell, the more globally interconnected — for better or worse- we have become. From supply chains, to food, to travel, to economics, to energy, we are precariously dependent on each other, even though the many world governments still function as disparate nation states constantly at war and vying for control over economic and natural resources.
This moment of crisis is filled with tremendous potential for humanity to react with the worst of our traits- greed, competition, fear, anger, violence, dominance.
Or we could respond with our best qualities- compassion, cooperation, creativity, generosity, innovation, and responsibility.
I believe this is a tipping point and that each and every one of us have our part to contribute. Who you are- your beliefs, values, behaviors- becomes transparent in the way you engage during a crisis. How each of us responds, as citizens, communities, regions and countries absolutely has an impact on how this crisis/ Rite of Passage moment is navigated collectively.
We who are privileged enough to not experience daily oppression, violence and scarcity have been living with a false sense of security that has been shaken by this global pandemic. This situation is forcing us to wake us up from our comfortably numb or unaware routines and to realize our good fortune and liberty. And also to realize our precariousness. Now that we are constrained, quarantined, our daily lives grinding to a halt, our global economy sliding into a severe recession, our personal liberties in question, perhaps we will take a long deep breath and consider our personal choices and our collective responsibility.
The enormity of the moment requires a Sacred Pause. As life as we knew it shuts down around the globe, we are gifted with the silver lining of a chance to consider our systems, our choices, our impacts, our responsibilities. This is a moment to ask- what matters to us? What have we been blind to? What is our focus as people and as a society? Where could we leverage this crisis as an opportunity to create more balance, wellbeing, equity, resilience and cooperation amongst us?
What will we choose to do with this moment? What will be created or destroyed by this situation? What do we want to move towards in light of this current crisis? What can each of us personally do to contribute towards the direction we want to head as individuals and communities?
By framing this social and economic shut down as a Sacred Pause for collective reflection, we can take a break from the break-neck speed of our societies and again return to the steady, slow beating of our own hearts. We can use this time to listen to the wild place within us that calls to us in the night. This place within us that knows we are lost. That part of us that somehow knows the way forward, even when we feel lost in the maze of fear, uncertainty, violence, distraction, and destruction.
We can take this moment to let ourselves feel the grief that we ALL carry within us, handed to us by generations of those incapable of fully processing it, furthered by our own experiences in a broken human family struggling to not destroy ourselves and those innocent ones we impact. Slowing down enough to reflect, to face and feel the depth of our collective despair and fear is THE threshold that must be passed for new consciousness to emerge. The only way to true liberation and personal freedom is embracing ourselves fully, remembering what is precious, accepting our response-ability and forging our commitment to do what we can, with where we are, with what we have to contribute towards peace, within and for all. Our grief is also what we collectively avoid and distract ourselves from truly feeling at all costs.
Stopping our hectic lives to feel our grief and uncertainty and to consider where we have been and where might be headed may not instantly shift our confusion, tension or fear. Yet, if we can pause and begin to LISTEN more deeply we can cultivate a calm presence to allow our best intelligence to emerge and for our heart’s compass to point the way.
This is a moment to be courageous, willing to take inventory and to consider perspectives outside of our previous comfort zone. This is a moment to willingly sit long enough in our discomfort to allow for some necessary reflection. This is an opportunity to be grateful for what good fortune is in our lives and to appreciate what is precious, This is a moment to recognize that nothing outside of ourselves will resolve or quell the longing for an answer or bring a sense of peace and empowerment. We have to look within to see more clearly what we can do and what changes we can advocate for “out there”.
I do not under-estimate the task ahead of us. Nor do I intend to diminish the suffering of so many right now whose lives have been up-ended by this global pandemic ( and all other manner of ongoing crisis). I don’t downplay the complexity of the situation nor arrogantly assume I ( or any of us) have all the solutions. However the only way through this situation is to do our best to stay vigilant, to stay calm, to be cooperative and come together to influence what we can in a positive way.
Being fully present to the process of change we are going through as individuals, communities and global leaders is the only way that we might go forward through these uncertain times with our wisdom intact. We need the best of our individual and collective intelligence to strengthen our interconnection, our cooperation, our stewardship of the common wealth and common systems that bind us.
We can all leverage this difficult situation as a time to take a Sacred and necessary Pause. The liminal invites us to truly restore, reflect, integrate, and move forward with the best of ourselves available to navigate what might lie ahead. There are vast potentials available to us and an opportunity to determine that we want this moment to be a collective turning point towards working together for a brighter future for ourselves and all of the generations to come.
“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize”
~Thich Nhat Hahn
JAMAICA STEVENS
Jamaica Stevens is Author and Curator of the multi-media project “ReInhabiting the Village: CoCreating our Future”. As an Organizational Design Consultant and Steward with VillageLab, Jamaica works with regenerative frameworks and whole systems principles to empower people, projects and organizations to THRIVE!
She is also an experienced event producer, workshop leader, group facilitator, educational program designer, community organizer, project manager, writer and life coach. She is currently the Educational Program Manager for the Lucid University, Community Manager for Communitas.Zone. Previously Jamaica was Manager for Lucidity Courseweek Program, Creator of Tribal Convergence Gatherings, Co-Founder of Tribal Convergence Network, Educational Program Coordinator with the Novalis Project, Executive Producer of Awaken Visionary Leadership Summit, as well as a Contributing Producer with Lucidity and other festivals.
Passionate about earth stewardship, collective evolution, village ethos and collaborative culture, Jamaica is in service to supporting the conditions for planetary flourishing and a regenerative renaissance. Learn more at JamaicaStevens.com
