patience, an antiquated relic

In our times of instant gratification and on-demand everything, the virtue of patience can feel like an antiquated relic. We expect fast shipping, immediate responses, quick career advancement and expedient solutions to all our problems. Any delay or hindrance is often met with restlessness, frustration and agitation.

Yet patience may be one of the most vital spiritual nutrients we are collectively starved of. For like the gradual unfolding of a rose blossom or a tree growing from a seed over decades, so many of life’s most magnificent blossomings require us to surrender to a coddle of unhurried unfoldings. When we demand that everything happen according to our predetermined timelines and expectations, we cut ourselves off from the resplendent mysteries that can only unveil themselves through the magic of waiting. The germinating seeds of our souls’ deepest growths, our creative genius works, and our most profound realizations about life all gestate according to a natural timing far beyond our singular will’s insistencies.

Like master artists, we must learn to steward the unhurried refinement inherent in each process. Raw effort and willfull striving alone cannot force open the sublime choreographies. This is the great alchemical art – to act while simultaneously remaining attuned to the inexorable pacing of a larger unfolding intelligence.Rather than slipping into resignation or inertia however, patience is an active, highly cultivated state of radical openness and present herenow awareness. It is the ability to fully embody and drink in each eternal moment without grasping to prematurely arrive at some future point of fixation. A serenely sustained beingness where our full participation is allowed to blend and merge with the ineffable unravelings always underway.

From this spacious ground, we gain an organic instinct for when to apply gentle effort and care, and when to simply pause, let go and let be. We begin flowing in symbiotic rhythmic attunement with life’s tidal pulsations rather than working against their oceanic currents. This is the patience cultivated by mountain sages and ancient groves of trees – where one becomes deeply at home harboring the poetry of a universe ceaselessly rebirthing itself through us, never growing restless or cynical about the gradual pace. For they know that the greatest masterworks, be they forms of inspiring humanity or awe-inspiring nature, all gestate through an unrhetorical release, slowly unfurling with inevitable grace when the season is finally ripe. With this mindset, we’ll be at peace with many of the uncertainties we face. Often calibrating such an inner compass has been of help. I hope it helps you as well. Always think about the broad picture, friends.

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