The Invisibility Trick

How do you make something obvious, something that calls attention to itself in every single one of your actions and perceptions,  go completely invisible? You assume it doesn't exist. How do you do that?

I don't know. It happens though.

I realized today that I had been undergoing recently a micro crisis, only because I was suddenly dealing with said crisis. This is why I'm now at my blog writing, because it surprised me such that I thought it was worth remembering.

My twin flame and I are moving into a new place this August. Like many things over recent months it seemed like a destined occurance, something we played into more than we conjured up. It was more like a spell cast by existence itself rather than us. So though I've been flowing with this current and feeling right in where it's taking me, now that this very real change is upon me I feel spiritually constipated.

I've never lived away from my parents, and this move is particularly important in that it is the most empowering step my love and I could possibly make within the possibilities of our own means in this city. Which is to say, this is the best possible place we could have afforded in all of Ottawa. This is an emphatic movement for us towards all that we dream to do with our lives. Yet at the same time, I owe all  of my dreams to the living I've done at home with my family. As I move on into a creation period, what is there left to learn from my family and my home?

I learned tonight, over a dinner in celebration for my sister's birthday, that I am not at all leaving behind the learning experience I have with family, nor with home. I had assumed that by moving out, claiming a certain sense of independence and self-direction, I would no longer need to have my ideals identitified by the lessons of my family. But the truth is that my family, and not just that one connected by blood, but that family which is connected throughout time, will always be changing how I identify with myself and the world.

After days of silence and distance, I managed tonight to speak with my mother in the car as we drove home about growing up, family, and identity. I realized as we were talking that I had, in trying to think of what was left to learn from my family, taken for granted what I had already learned and what was already there between me and my family. I was so focused on the future and what I wanted to do with my life that I could only see criticisms to make on the lessons I had learned. What was out of focus in my mind was the most essential lessons that are most obvious in the present moment.

When thinking of the future, my mind is always faster to consider the prgamatics. How will life be in the future? What is going to change? But in the present, it is so much more difficult to forget the immediate need for love and commonality in one's thinking. The need to relate to others, to feel connected to a bigger picture that accounts for all of one's experiences. My mother reminded me of this immediate need, and when I was reminded I realized I had forgotten all about it. But how can I forget something so integral to my own happiness? Why did I assume that it just wasn't there?

I guess it is my way of claiming autonomy and self-direction even when I don't feel like I'm ready for it. It's like saying "I'm going to be myself" by going completely quiet and disassociating with loved ones. It wasn't until a period of dis-ease, seclusion and meditation had passed that I was open to the realization that I could be myself by actually expressing how I felt.

The things I spoke with my mother about are only a few minor topics found in a letter on this computer. It's a letter I've been composing for months now that is almost twenty-five pages long, addressed to my family. Turns out everything I've ever wanted to write about to newspapers, magazines, or anyone, I actually wanted to say to my parents first. But I'm realizing as time goes on that the letter will never fulfill its function, which is to close the gaps in understanding between myself and my family.

To be in a common place of understanding with my family, I simply have to talk to them, face to face. But what's more important is that I have to feel the love I have for them, and not be afraid of being afraid. Coming to a place of dissonant understanding with one's family is a fearful experience. It leaves me with wavering faith in myself. But is my faith in myself so strong now if I can't even allow it to become vulnerable to criticism?

I remembered tonight that I am in a common place of understanding with my family. I realized that in my vision of the future, it is not my blood-family I seek to change necessarily, but it is the broader human family of which everyone in my blood-family is an individual part that I seek to change. So looking into the future, I should not criticise the ways of my family, but critisize the ways of society as a whole and allow all individuals, myself included, to take heed or not to as they wish. What unites me to my family, and to every person, is that we all love and strive to be loved, we all seek to gain a deeper understanding and wholesomeness in our lives, and we are all united in our unique sense of individuality.

My mother reminded me of this, that as an individual I share a common place with every other human being. It is only the people who pull the invisibility trick who feel they are in a different place. The human spirit, the undying passion to commune with the sacred, is so blatant that it takes a mighty leap of faith in one's own individual integrity to blind oneself to the seamlessness between every individual. Knowing one's self, the human spirit naturally returns to a place of commonality with all creatures.

This is something I've learned before, but I am still learning. I never seemed to get it like this. I've always remained awkward around my family, on busses, in crowds. This movement into the world at large and the reaffirming reminders I'm getting from my family all emphasize the importance of this lesson: to love all people as oneself; not to delude oneself into being higher or lower than one self.

It's late, so maybe this won't make sense to me later, but at least I'll have something to remember the experience by. It's strange having a crisis you didn't know exist suddenly appear and ask to be resolved. She moves in mysterious ways, huh?

Love