On the Virtue of Resilience
The Beauty of Wonder: I wonder what happened to this tree?
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. This is an adaptation of a line in “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns : “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.”
Put another way in the Oracle Card “Obstacles” from The Shaman’s Dream Oracle by Alberto Villoldo and Colette Baron-Reid, “Life on life’s terms will override your best laid plans. Yes, as inconvenient as it may seem, this experience is an important reminder that you are a human being, not a human doing.”
The concept that we can only be considered to be successful if we participate in a constant stream of ceaseless productivity, that we are only valuable so long as we have something to offer, is internalized capitalism. Born of a mechanistic worldview which is actively being overturned by a quantum revolution, this inherent falsehood is not only delusional, it is oppressively ableist.
There is not a single natural example of ceaseless productivity. Every living thing is subject to forces outside of their control which they must navigate in cycles of ebb and flow. Human beings must participate in a pendulum swinging rhythmically and with dynamic stability between the opposing forces of work and play, activity and rest. Like lizards or lions, the human animal must rest in sunshine and absorb Vitamin D in order to achieve healthy functioning. We must shelter from the storms in life. We must tend to our warmth and secure foundations, hearth and home in the winter. We have opportunities to go forth, celebrate, and commune in the summer.
Provided too much comfort, and too controlled an environment, a living thing will decay under it’s own lack of restraint. Like a bulb which was planted indoors and stayed sheltered too long, it will grow tall and lanky. When transferred to the outdoors, it will break in the first strong wind. A child who has been too sheltered from the hardships of the world will invent hardship of their own in order to meet their fundamental natural need to overcome challenges and obstacles in order to build resilience and self esteem.
Provided too little rest and nurturing, a living thing will dry out, become brittle, and fail to thrive. Like desert soil, too much activity (heat) will deplete your foundations of sustenance. We can all only ever grow as tall as we are simultaneously rooting deeply.
As Mercury traveled retrograde through Aries and my twelfth house, I was profoundly reminded to retreat, rest, rejuvenate and restore myself. It is obvious yet often overlooked that before we can plant our seeds, perennials, or nursery starts, we must first tend the soil in which we plan to grow them. Your body, mind, and soul are the soil in which you grow your life. Have you taken time away from your endless pursuit of perfection to ask yourself whether you are cultivating resilience?
There is no perfection in nature, and yet there is beauty, harmony, music, art, and life. Some of the most beautiful artworks of the creatrix are those that recover from natural disaster in a profound display of resilience. Water your roots, nurture your body/mind/soul. You may never be perfect, because no such ideal exists outside your imagination. Part from the storms you are creating in your mind which would deplete you before you have the opportunity to experience both the storms and the sunshine which exist without.
Ceaseless productivity, perfectionism, heroism, martyrdom, and self deprecation are egoism born of human arrogance which says that we are apart from and superior to the natural order. The virtue which should live in the vacuum which seeks fulfillment in these misbegotten qualities is resilience. Humble yourself with the ability to accept that you are an imperfect being who must shelter from storms, rest, and cultivate resilience to navigate forces that are outside your control.
Resilience is beautiful, natural, and virtuous. When the storm has passed, when we are better rested, when we have found acceptance that we are not perfect; we make space to tolerate failure, delays, challenges, grief, loss, difficulties, and in general an ability to weather obstacles with grace. We learn, we grow in a balance between rootedness and expansiveness, and we are able to be witnessed in all the messy, interesting beauty of All That We Are.
I am no more behind than you are. We are all living beings cultivating a balanced reciprocity with ourselves and our environments. The timeline is artificial. You need be nowhere else except where you are, and no one else beside who you are. See to your resilience, and you will be prepared for whatever storms may come. You will have time to experience the only thing that is real, the present, for the beautiful gift that it is.
We must rebel against the sale of happiness that exists in the future. Not a single one of us is guaranteed a future. Sample your happiness in the present. The future only exists as a potential you might be able to create from your imagination. Reality is in the here and now, and there is nothing but abundance as far as the eye can see. If you pause in your pursuit of happiness, you might find it has been with you all along.
