Photo from The Narrows in Zion National Park
Last month I spent a week in Zion, and I was struck by the incredible power of water as I looked up at enormous red cliffs hiking to Angels Landing and descended into the Virgin River trudging through The Narrows.
During this time I was doing a practice where I created a turmeric Ganapati and then slowly dissolved it drip by drip through water. The ritual is beautiful to witness because sometimes the solid structure didn’t dissolve entirely leaving peaks and valleys like the canyons in Zion, and other times Ganapati melted completely into a flowing river.
I reflected during this practice on my own difficult places to dissolve and the areas that keep me hardened and contracted: arrogance, stubbornness, comparison to others, jealousy, or shame, just to name a few.
As I hiked in Zion and saw thousands of feet of rock diminished over centuries by the powerful force of water I wondered why is it so difficult to soften my own edges? How long will it take to dissolve completely into surrender?
Why do I even want to soften and surrender? What I have learned from my teacher, Saundaryāmbikā, is the places I protect and defend keep me stuck, separate and closed off to life. When I stubbornly believe something “should” be other than the way it is I am unable to accept life as it is. When I am comparing myself to others or jealous I am putting myself in a hierarchy of who is better (or worse) than me, which only leads to suffering. When I can flow with life, which paradoxically includes feeling the fullness of experience including jealousy and stubbornness, there is acceptance and love of myself, others and the world.
Water is such a beautiful metaphor for surrender. It takes the shape of whatever holds it. It doesn’t try to manipulate its surroundings with force. It rolls, glides and flows with whatever it comes into contact with, and through that surrender it creates some of the biggest change! The continual flow carves canyons and valleys and it can move some of the biggest boulders. Yet I can’t even hold water in my hand.
Water also has the power to be a hurricane or a flash flood that can radically affect and destroy not over centuries but in a very short period of time. Water has the amazing power to be soft and fierce, still and flowing, stagnant and dynamic. You can’t pin water down, and in that way it can be a powerful teacher.
With each drip of teachings I integrate from my teacher, insights that transform me and inquiry practices that change my perspective I learn to fight less against life knowing that I will never win that battle. Through fighting less I allow the water of life to lead me while enjoying the ride whether I am surfing a huge and terrifying wave or relaxing in the sweet gentle tides.
What are the places in you that remain stuck, stagnant or hard to break through? How does that serve you? How does that cause suffering? What helps you soften into acceptance of what is rather than fighting reality?