Surfing the Tsunami
Meeting the Moments we are Made for
For decades, Clarissa Pinkola Estés has inspired me not to “lose heart” in trying times — that in fact it is often in those moments that we find our “shine,” and when others most need to see and feel our light.
A few months ago I wrote about my own year of Sitting with the Storm and the power and possibility that comes from meeting the moments that might knock us sideways with as much courage, grace, and presence as we can muster. In that piece, I explored the relief that can come from “saying the quiet parts out loud,” from finally exhaling after holding our breath, and of the strength we can find in reaching for one another, and remembering that we are not alone even in our most difficult moments.
When I was writing the KOAN method three years ago, I knew I was synthesizing years of lived experience, applied scholarship, and practical wisdom into sensible frameworks, but didn’t fully appreciate that I was also charting my own star map and that the call to lead in, from, and through uncertainty would crash so heavily at my own front door.
Then again, the Universe does seem to have a sense of humor.
When this year of crashing waves might have bowed and battered me, I chose instead to alchemize it into art. The print above was inspired by Phil Lewis, one of my favorite local artists, and I was delighted that he agreed to collaborate with me on this commission.
I call it Surfing the Tsunami and while at first I related to the seven dragons as representative of the series of trials I faced this year, I now know that they represent everything worth picking oneself back up for… The art, I have found, is not in avoiding life’s waves but in choosing which ones are yours to learn to surf.
I’ve also come to appreciate that in dynamic systems every height creates a hollow and that the wave we are teaching ourselves to surf might look a lot like a dragon in someone else’s story. Learning to hold that Truth — not as shame or guilt but with honorable presence — might be what readies us most for the ride.
The world will continue to test us, day-by-day with many flavors of ferocity — reminding us that shock-and-awe is a strategy, not a condition, and that how we meet the moment is up to us, but also that exhaustion and depletion are not our allies, and finding joy in the ride may just be the best act of rebellion.
Here’s a poem that reminds us that every wave must be met from the here and now, and that we are always already in an ongoing and unfolding dance with both the experience and what we make of it.
We can learn to sit in and with the storm, to meet each moment as it arises — and then decide who we will be in the face of dragons, and which ones are ours to ride.
What dragons do you care enough about to chase?
What longing inspires you to join the dance?
What joy can you find in the ride?
*********************
Surfing the Tsunami
As the first fearsome faces roar off on the horizon
Our in-breath sends its signal: steady now.
They are coming FOR us —
Aren’t they?
Snarling down on all that scares us,
As we exhale slowly, and
Meet the monster’s gaze to find
Our own face smiling wryly —
Urging us out beyond the edge of our own (dis-)comfort.
Suddenly we laugh, take the plunge, and paddle out.
With every stroke we see the sea, completely.
With every breath, we feel the fullness of our being.
Inhabiting this momentary now, we find each wave is
Born of a caring so consuming it can crush us
Only because the ache of the hollow
Excavates the space from which longing can be met.
When we stop this relentless searching and
Turn our head, we catch our own gaze, there, and
Find that the gleam in our eye mirrors
The very fire we thought we were fighting (for?).
With every paddle out to meet the sea,
We encounter our own reflection
In the growing swell that is ours alone to ride.
Less daunting now, but still wildly alive,
It calls us to rise into our full radiance, ready
To surf the wave of our own longing.
In that moment, right before we break,
Commitment calls us forward, as
Devotion and daring demand we stand, now —
Wholeheartedly given to the ride of our lives.
With every fiber of our being consenting,
We surrender to our own volition and drop in.
Letting go of everything that will or cannot follow, we
Feel the fraying fabric of familiarity as
The prism of protagonism and her shadows
Projects the dragon’s face upon our shoulders.
We feel the truth that falling freely down any fearsome face
Demands we keep our eyes and hearts where our feet are.
Here, in pure present awareness —
Every tiny tingly cell is suddenly suffused
With the crackling creativity of our own becoming.
Now, we find our aspirations attuning
To the pure pleasure of possibility
That lives in the space between our supposed star map
And a future we find curiously more compelling
The less we try to chart its course.
Remembering, each time the morning star winks our way or
Grandmother moon shines her growing/shrinking belly across the sky,
That they have guided sailors and wanderers alike
For as long as there have been dreams to dream of.
With this knowing in us, always-available,
We step out of time and into an eternal now
That animates our every action, infusing it
With the pure joy of we and thee
In it together, entangled intimately
With all of everything, all at once.
Steady. Rhythmic. Radiating.
With a faith that comes not from any guarantees
But from trusting, at last, the fiery furnace in
Our own treasure chest
With the sort of devotion that
Sets our hearts alight in a blaze of grace.
As the last of our dragons fade to foam at the shore, we
Exhale, and find ourselves; here; now; home.
*************
This article builds on a series of pieces broadly exploring the ideas in the KOAN method: Breakthrough Leadership for a Divided World. Follow me as I live more and more fully into these principles and practices at aboldervision.com.
