THE LITTLE DUCK
Now we are ready
to look at something special.
It is a duck
riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf,
And he cuddles the
swells.
There is a great
heaving in the Atlantic,
And he is part of
it.
He can rest while
the ocean heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.
He probably
doesn’t know how large the Atlantic is.
And neither do
you.
But he realises
it.
And what does he
do, I ask you? He sits down in it.
He reposes in the
immediate as if it is infinity – which it is.
That is religion and
the little duck has it.
Donald C. Babcock
Sometimes we can step back
and notice that our lives are but a small part of a larger pattern that is
somehow removed from our daily doings. In
these moments we recognize that the swells and heavings we contend with, the ebb
and flow of our stories, arrange themselves around us while our lives flow on. The question arises: How can we, like the
little duck, stay present to that ‘big picture’, the Atlantic in which we swim? How can we give ourselves over, surrendering
to what IS while we cuddle into the waves of our lives?
The possibility of surrender
periodically emerges, its definition changing as I’ve grown. Moving from a dis-empowered childhood when surrender meant capitulation, feeling ground down under the thumb of authority, I
stepped out onto a spiritual path and along with it came the understanding that
life is larger than I had realised. I am
connected with all sentient beings, and a story of wonder starts to take shape.
Living became about something other than the struggle to keep my metaphorical
head above water. And, like the Little
Duck, I, too, had the potential to simply swim in the Atlantic without needing
to know how large it is, or how many waves I would be called upon to navigate,
or what skills, foresight and luck I would need to keep on swimming. Simply trusting that the waves could hold me allowed
for new possibilities of comfort.
For me, trust and surrender go hand in hand.
Somewhere along the way I learned that by leaning into trust I
experienced the relief of surrender. I
learned that I didn’t have to carry it all.
I continue to believe that I have personal responsibility for my choices
each moment of each day, but that the actual story is held by some ineffable
something which I now call Sacred Essence (see the prayer on the ‘Welcome’
page of my website). So now my story
now goes like this: something larger holds me, and us, while the world
continues spinning and the Atlantic continues heaving. I can surrender to the wisdom that it is All while
being held by -something else-….
All of this is to say that
our choices matter. They matter a great
deal. Each moment of each choice is
important. Do we see ourselves as
victims in someone else’s story? Are we
co-creators of a new story? Do we step
up into community, rolling up our sleeves for a common vision?
I suspect that the first
step of my moving towards trust was letting go of my expectations about how
this situation or that one might unfold.
We’ve all heard the old adage “Expectations are pre-meditated
disappointments”. Once I understood that
I got in my own way by wanting a situation to turn out according to my whim of
the moment, I could then consider the possibility of stepping back and letting
things take their course. That was about
all it took. Getting out of my own
way. And stepping back to watch the
future unfold.
I say this with the gift
of hindsight. My style has historically been to attempt to let go, all of the
while kicking and screaming my resistance.
But there is reality and there is intention. My intention is to be like the Little Duck who
takes a breath and relaxes into the swells and crashes of life with grace and
equanimity. I seek to recognize that I
don’t know how big the Atlantic is, but to trust that it is holding me.
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