Above all, Siddartha learned from the river. Incessantly, he learned from it. Most of all, he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without a wish, without judgement, without an opinion.
―Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
witnessing grace
I packed some books, snacks, a bottle of water, and a warm sweater and headed out of my house with one goal—to sit on the shores of an ocean about 45 minutes away from my house. I started the car engine, took a deep breath, and began my adventure on the highways of this beautiful landscape that I live in. The beach that I was headed to is one that I had not visited in about two years. The last time I was there, I laughed a lot, played, embraced and was embraced in reciprocity, chatted with one of the locals about the history of the land, and sat by the train tracks looking into the expansive, silky blue hues of the water. I had not been planning to return. However, after a particularly difficult night this past week, an inner whisper nudged me to make my trip back to this specific beach. And I, in practising what it means to listen deeper, followed the nudge.
Sitting by this beach, coffee cup in hand, I knew that it was exactly where I needed to be. I had come with no expectations or concrete plans, except the clarity that I needed to be on this piece of land looking out into this endless body of water. A few minutes into my retreat, I found myself singing, humming, taking deep breaths, praying, and smiling to myself, the birds, and passing strangers.
At that moment, I was nothing and everything—all at once. Then I realized how my return to this place was somehow a dance with time(lines). The memories of my time here from two years ago visited me, and I was transported in loops and spirals like the sea shells on the coastline.
While resting in my visualizations and recollections, I was also deeply present with the softness of the wind, the smell of the ocean, the sight of swimming and flying birds, the gentle chatter of people and their kiddos strolling along the shore, and the incessant backdrop of daily human comings-and-goings. Like a meeting of ocean currents, this moment—coffee cup in one hand, boots touching kelp and algae, golden sun behind grey wisps of clouds—this entire scene was a confluence of memories. Each memory with its own density, sound, and accompanying sensation.
This experience was neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’. It simply was. It felt right, and that was enough.
journeying with grace
Grace feels similar—it comes with a sense of unexplained satisfaction. One after another, experiences feel aligned, synchronous, and sufficient. It is as though answers to unspoken questions mysteriously, yet intuitively, appear. Gaps that had been looming begin to fill with exactly the substance that suits them; wounds attract their own medicine.
In our most immediate environments, we may not have the ‘evidence’ or ‘formula’ for what is producing the cascade of synchronous events which we are experiencing. Nonetheless, what becomes clear is that whatever it is that we are called to do, wherever it is we need to be, and whenever it is the clock will strike—all of that is just right. Through grace, explanations exceed understanding; and in these times, it is our surrender to what seems un-knowable that unlocks the very thing we have been praying/looking/asking for.
I have come to learn that grace is most evident when we are still enough to listen and humble enough to surrender.
For me, this has meant increasing my capacity to hold unanswered questions and unresolved challenges. This is not a call to abandon our responsibilities and self-determined commitments. Rather, what I mean to say is that, as I pause to linger in the ‘in-between’ moments, where I commune with the voice that sighs and says “I do not yet know”, it is then that I observe loopholes and solutions to seemingly complex problems. There—at the edges of what we term as insurmountable or dreadful or impossible—lies a ‘perhaps, a maybe’; an opening into an unmarked trail through the woods.
What if the compass and map you have been relying on so far into your journey are not needed for the next phase of your adventure? They got you here but will they get you through this coming part?
Perhaps releasing these tools is exactly what makes the current season of my life feel less like ‘fighting through the jungle’ and more of ‘let’s follow this trail to wherever it leads’. Again, this is not to deceive ourselves that there are no hardships. Nor is this about looking away from what is difficult, heartbreaking, and quite honestly, sometimes, plain horrific. No—to pretend that pain is an illusion is the sort of bypassing that eventually catches up to us; the sort of bypassing that results in us being calloused and blocked from experiencing the full range of all, including joy, ease, and pleasure.
I have been there—in that place of refusing to acknowledge and witness the pain. Quite frankly, that was how I coped for a significant part of my years. I was there also as recently as this week as I navigated the heaviness of yet another blow.
But, thankfully, this time, I have people and places and prayers that bring me back out of the cold, grey walls that form around my soft skin and tender heart. I have lists of names to call, songs to hum, and prayers on my tongue. I have medicines to touch and memories to call upon. I have grace in all these forms, and I have grace in formless forms that I cannot contain in words and pictures.
The gifts of grace are seeds in my inner sanctuary. The gifts of grace are the garden within me—the place I keep returning to when I need to remember who I truly am and where I really come from.
communing with grace
Sometimes, I take one of the chairs in my house and turn it to face me. Then, I sit on another chair opposite this empty one. I look at the empty chair before me and I visualize in my mind whoever it is I would like to chat with sitting right there. This time, I sat with Grace. I looked at Grace. Grace looked back and we smiled at each other.
I opened my mouth. Paused. Took a deep breath and then proceeded to ask:
Grace, who are you?
What fruits and teas can I go looking for to welcome you fully into my home?
What part of my garden should I plant you in—the one where the sun is always touching or the one with some bits of shade?
What gifts can I offer you for the thousands of ways you continue to colour my life?
How do you know me so well?
Grace, how is it, that after all of this—the rubble, the grief, the wrath, the shame, the pleasure, the emptiness—you still love me immeasurably and unconditionally?
Grace looked, took a couple of deep breathes and said:
You are everything I am.
Because you are, I am. Every time you choose yourself, I celebrate you.
And whenever choosing yourself feels too challenging, I choose you for you.
Where your heart is tender, I am there.
Where your heart is calloused, I am there too—like a gentle hum in the background.
I know you because, without you saying it, you embody a commitment to your own liberation.
I know you because you are searching and yearning for depth and radical honesty.
And yes, after everything—the rubble, the grief, the wrath, the shame, the pleasure, the emptiness—all I have is love for you;
and that is something you never need to question.
there are miracles in me
waiting their turn to happen
i am never giving up on myself
—rupi kaur
This was such a beautiful and needed piece Njoki. Thank you for sharing your offering :)
It brings to mind a quote by Rumi: 'You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.'