There is a flywheel underfoot. It is nature’s rhythm and pulse. It is God’s divine orchestra.
And you are less than a hair’s breadth away from it.
You just have to scooch …every so slightly …out of those old, rusty rhythms of your life. Move just to the left of those grooves—those ideas about what keeps your life in order. Maybe it’s a pattern in a relationship or at work, a meditation or workout regimen, a particular coffee in the morning (like me!). These are the controlled, mechanized aspects of your life.
The flywheel is out of control. It runs on the power of your body—which moves with the ocean’s tides, the seasonal changes, and the sun & moon cycles.
Your body is part and parcel of the One Body. We’ve been shown this by modern physics and molecular science—there’s no real separation when we get down to the smallest levels of things. We are made of something like 99.99% space; the rest is light, only appearing as solid, three dimensional form. And our body is also constantly recycled with ‘other’ bodies— you have a new pancreas every day, for goodness’ sake! When we take a wide view we see that same connectedness—solar systems and weather systems and ocean systems, connected with the trees, bacteria, birds, and soil. One body, one movement.
My favorite film last year was a documentary called Biggest Little Farm. It was about a couple, John & Molly (inspired by their dog Todd), who move from the city to start a farm. They are committed to biodiversity—making it 100% sustainable—but they have very little idea how to do this. They start with digging in the dirt, bringing in worm slurry to introduce life to the soil; this introduction of the worms begins what their farmer-teacher calls ‘the flywheel’—the effortless movement of everything on the farm sustaining everything else. The ground cover absorbs rainwater, which filters to the pond, which brings the ducks, which creates richer soil, and so on. When nature takes over the mechanics of the farm, there is a dynamic balance.
In attempting to uncover this flywheel, John & Molly try (and fail) many times; what they end up learning is that the solutions—to coyotes killing their chickens or snails eating their fruit trees— are utterly obvious, and about as effortless as can be.
The less they try, the more the solutions pop into view.
This is because the flywheel is the natural order of all things, of all Life; it is effortless, abundant, and always available—we are simply out of practice in seeing it & hearing it. Instead, we believe we have to control or manipulate or ‘innovate’ with regard to life. We’ve been taught not to trust our bodies, not to trust our natural proclivities. Remember in school when you had to raise your hand to go to the bathroom, or had only 1/2 hour of ‘recess’ to move your body? When you were taught things you had zero interest in, but were told you ‘should’ know? We’ve been taught strange, unnatural things. We’ve been taught to out-think our bodies & our lives.
But we don’t need to out-think, out-run, or out-fox life. We are Life. We don’t need manipulation at all.
We are seeing this now, with the COVID 19 epidemic. We are seeing how every body is connected, and how larger systems (ecological, financial, political, etc) are completely intertwined. We are also getting a glimpse into how much of our life has been controlled and habituated—how much was run from a kind-of deadened pattern (Those meetings that could have been emails..? That monthly book club that you only kinda maybe liked..?)
I say now is a good time to find the flywheel.
We do this by feeling for the most effortless thing in our own lives. Not numbed out, checked out effortless. Checking out of our lives actually takes more effort. Checking in is easier. And it is checking in just right now. With the body, here in this moment. With the silence, here in the moment. With the space that is here. The body, silence, space…these are all here, in the room. They are the entry doors to the flywheel.
When John & Molly get their insights about how to get rid of the snails on their fruit trees, or how to navigate the coyotes killing their chickens, they are literally just standing around, defeated from trying, staring into space. Their control mechanisms are exhausted…and the flywheel taps on their shoulder, offering solution after solution.
What is true is that there is only one movement going on here because there is only one of us here. When John & Molly stop playing God, God takes over.
Let her take you over now. She will eventually, anyway.
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