Getting lost

Two weeks ago was the Epiphany on the Christian calendar.  For those who don't know the significance of that day, it marks the day in which the wise men or kings arrived to honor the baby Jesus after following the star as their guide.  In some cultures Christmas Eve/Christmas Day marks the beginning of the celebration of the holiday, which for them ends on January 6, when Twelfth Night celebrations occur.  The giving of gifts at that time mirrors the gifts the magi brought to the infant.

Anyone who has lived through the drum of Christmas carols on elevator and department store music or even read William Shakespeare's "The Twelfth Night" probably at least vaguely knows about those events or traditions.  "We Three Kings of Orient Are" "The Twelve Days of Christmas," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," etc. My interest in these events is more than what I've learned from piped-in music. I've actually studied these events at some length.

I love to learn.  I particularly like to learn something that adds to or alters an understanding that was pretty well entrenched for me.  (For instance, maybe this week the discovery of the likelihood of a new planet.) So it was two weeks ago on Epiphany, when our pastor shared that the kings didn't actually arrive in Bethlehem directly.  They actually went to Jerusalem first, which was about 12 miles from Bethlehem.  They got lost before correcting their course and making their objective.

He went on to compare the journey of the kings with any spiritual journey.  Sometimes we get lost. Yesterday I wrote of getting lost on my journey to be present and grateful.  I think there have been times when I was very good at that.  Then I got lost.  I am sure the kings didn't know the first step that took them away from their intended destination, but as some point they became aware that they were 12 miles from where they wanted to be. I don't know when I began to stray either, but I clearly had.

What I do know is that it was easier when I had my own business.  I worked very hard, but I could pick and choose my work, and I could delay work when it would keep me from being really focused on something I was already working on.  For many years, clients booked several months in advance to do my intensives or to schedule a speech, usually around my schedule.

I've made it up that I can't do that when someone else is my boss.  I say I've made that up because I mostly haven't tried saying to my boss that I am overbooked when being given a new task. I haven't been clear about when my boundaries were being crossed.  I haven't said to someone that I want to talk with them later but right now I need to be present to what I am doing.  I can't say that I could be more present because I haven't tried all the things my colleague has demonstrated to me so nicely.

I also wrote yesterday about circumstances being laboratories for personal growth. Yes, it was easier to really be present when I controlled most of the variables, so that may have been "Being Present 101."  My real job that I will go back to next week will probably be the graduate school version of that lesson.

In one of her books, Carol Pearson wrote about the Hero's Journey like concentric circles.  She says that we learn the same lessons (or live the same archetypes) over and again, but each time what we learn is supposed to be different--a more advanced lesson.  I like to think that maybe I've just been in a more challenging lesson, but when the pastor spoke of being lost, it really resonated for me.  I have felt lost, but am learning.

While there is something heavy about the inevitability of learning the same lessons over and over again like "Ground Hog Day," I find it uplifting that if I am awake enough to see the lessons and learn them, I keep growing...and I will keep growing for as long as I notice the lesson.  For someone who likes to learn, that is a delicious prospect.

Layers of Learning

I can remember having moments when I was teaching at the university when I would find words spilling out of my mouth, and in that very moment I would have the thought, "Oh, that's what that means."  Generally, it would be something I'd thought I'd known and understood for 10, 20, or maybe even 25 years. All of the sudden in that moment in how it came out, I understood what I thought I'd known for a very long time in a different way.  I got it! Differently.

That has happened in books that I've written too.  Almost every time I reread one of my books or even part of one, there will be a moment when I will think to myself (and occasionally even exclaim out loud) "I didn't know I knew that then."  I had known it, but just on a whole different level.

Those who have been reading this blog for a while will know that there are certain themes that repeat themselves.  I believe what is happening is that I discover something different about each spiritual lesson every time I write about it.  In The Game Called Life I say that each of us comes into this life with certain lessons that we have to learn, and learning them is one of three purposes of our lives.  (The other two are performing service and developing/using our gifts and talents.)

I am quite certain that the recurring themes in this blog are lessons that I have to live and learn in this lifetime.  However, I also believe that humankind periodically needs to evolve itself spiritually, and in order to do so, many of us, who are working on the same lesson(s), choose to come and work on the same lessons in parallel.  As we master the nuances of the same lessons, we collectively evolve our world. 

I've been taking an autumn/new year retreat for about 20 years, more or less.  I didn't know when I did it the first time that it would be the first time and not a solitary occurrence, so I can't be more precise. I've been taking several days in silent reflection for longer than that, but I don't really know when I fell into a twice-a-year, fall and spring rhythm. 

For the first few times (10, or maybe 15 or 20) there would be major Aha! moments.  I would really experience on a deep and profound level something about myself that I don't think I'd ever known, or if I did, I certainly hadn't understood the impact.  I like to say, "We can't not know what we know." After those early retreats, my learnings literally shook the foundations of how I lived my life, immediately and profoundly so.

In more recent retreats, the learning has been much like the aspects of Organizational Behavior that I used to share with my university students: something bubbles up that I've known for a long time, but I just understand it in a different way.  "Oh, that again," I will say to myself.  Inevitably, it is one of my enduring lessons, popping up in a new form. 

During my recent pilgrimage in Greece, I kept bumping into the same lessons that I've struggled over and again to integrate into my life. Each time I did, I'd be a bit irritated at myself that I've been working on something years, and even decades, and I still don't have it. I guess that is why they are life lessons and not this week lessons. I don't know why I had to go to Greece to learn them...again. Maybe my lesson is that I can't run away from them.  They also showed up in different forms, but certainly not different enough that I didn't recognize them and feel the sting of on-going learning.

My three intentions for the year ahead are to open my heart, be vulnerable, and create connection.  I am not 100% sure, but I am pretty confident that they are all the same.  Over the next few days, I will share the lessons which I will need to master in order to accomplish those intentions.  There will be similarity to other postings, since these represent layers of learning for me. 

However, if I were to summarize what I think will be different this time, I would say there are two things.  First is that I've been attempting my lessons unilaterally.  That means, I am trying to do it all by myself.  These are all lessons that can only be learned in relationship with others and with particular others.  I can't create connection with someone who isn't equally committed to creating connection.  To attempt to do so is insanity.  What comes to mind is the often quoted definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The second aspect that I believe will be different has to do with complexity.  The lessons are inter-related, and mastering each has impacts on the other two...and others as well.