Yesterday, I really wanted to go to Downtown Sounds (free local concert), but I didn’t want to go by myself. My partner was working, my daughter was gone. I could have tried to coordinate with someone, but I didn’t have any coordinating energy. So, I decided to accept all of that and stay home.
I got a text in the afternoon from my neighbors—they were going, and did I want to come?
Yes! And I experienced yesterday what I’ve been experiencing over and over again lately. When we create space, what we need and want has the invitation to arrive. When there is no space, there also isn’t space for surprise and abundance. The harder we work to force things into place, the less likely things will fall into place.
Some of my favorite lines of poetry ever are from Denise Levertov’s “The Tide.” Clear the littered beach, clear/the lines of a forming poem/the waters flood inward./Dull stones again fulfill/their glowing destinies, and emptiness/is a cup and holds/the ocean.
“Emptiness is a cup and holds the ocean.” If we are never empty, if we never create space, there is not room to receive the bounty that is waiting for us! I heard Ezra Klein interview D. Graham Burnett recently on the topic, “Your Mind is being Fracked.” Graham is the co-founder of The Strother School of Radical Attention which helps people reclaim their own powers of attention and organizes against the forces that are trying to commodify our attention. I think this one of the most pressing issues of our time, and it’s something I am constantly talking to my clients about.
Create space in your calendar. Plan extra time for errands in case you end up having a more meaningful, time-taking interaction with someone on your route. Slow down when you pass your neighbors. Get off your phone. Really, really off it. Truly. Lock it up if you have to. We’re addicted, not because what’s on it is more interesting than life, but because millions of people are being PAID to create addiction in us.
Sit with the emptiness, boredom, fear, pain, pleasure, or relief that comes after creating space. Dare to not know what’s coming next. Dare to be less entertained, less open to other people’s priorities, less titillated by the purchases everyone wants you to make. Dare to be less informed, less relevant, less automated.
You know by now what’s coming up for me—my August break! I’ve got a stack of fiction forming, lots of swimming opportunities, time with family, time to clean my pantry, no writing newsletters, and plenty of emptiness. I wish the same for you. May you choose emptiness and may that emptiness hold the ocean.