Wenderholm, NZ. March 2020
Washed up and trapped on the rocks below a cliff, beneath the hot sun, a bleached out log speaks of the netherworld.
Between stages.
Defying the elements.
Light, wind and water may continue to shape that which has no longer any cause to be concerned by it.
Where it grew, what it sheltered – none of that matters now.
Lying in state; in a state of transition.
From expansion to deterioration.
And back again…
(see Beach And Bleached for more glimpses of the place between)
Pohutukawa Flowers, December 2019
“Every beginning is a consequence – every beginning ends something”
– Paul Valery
So, new year, new decade.
We will celebrate the New Year, as humans are wont to do with anything new.
Some ponderings:
Sometimes we start something new, without realising it has drawn a line with the past.
And vice versa – we can be so obsessed with ending something, that we fail to grasp that we have moved into a new phase.
Also, sometimes there is an end without an apparent “new” thing. That’s alright. A time of transition, awkward as it can be, may be infinitely valuable and is in fact essential. Not that the world will necessarily understand if you find yourself in a place of apparent nothingness.
Remember, in nature there has to be a fallow time before verdant growth.
Anyway, Happy New Year, wherever you find yourself !
I don’t mind, actually.
No, not the sort of gap pictured – that could end a little messily at the wrong time.
I mean the hiatus; the space in between; the fallow period – call it what you will.
Elsewhere on this site I have explored whether being in that place ,willingly or not, is such a bad thing. See Hiatus (Never Mind The Gap!) and In Transition ,for example.
In the not too distant past, I found myself in a major life hiatus. At first I resented being in nowhere land(or at least that was how I saw it to be ). There were none of the usual markers and signifiers that routine and being busy, busy offered.
What I slowly grasped was that there I did not need to prove anything to anyone, did not to need to analyse the situation, or agonise over what was next .In fact I just had to – be. That was uncomfortable for me but massively liberating in the end.
New things and miracles happened without me chasing them. This blogsite is not named accidentally.
It’s often said that we learn most from adversity or our mistakes,and that may be often true. However I think that the real progress is made in the “after space” of those things .
Self-realisation and change occur in that gap in events where motion stops, and we have time and permission to rest with our being and the universe.
You just can’t squeeze that shit in walking to the shops or in a coffee break between jobs….
Yesterday I went to the funeral I mentioned in my previous post ,and it got me thinking. Not about death(although that would be the ultimate hiatus!),but about taking a pause in life’s endeavours.It could be voluntary or thrust upon us.
I was speaking to an old friend at the funeral I had not seen for many years and he was in hiatus mode,and waiting for his next work/vocational opportunity.Waiting around can be hard , sometimes even harder than being in the middle of some major work or relationship ,which demands constant action but has the comfort of the known. As we wait, anxiety and boredom may creep in, self-doubt also.Those emotions and behaviours in themselves can give us learnings.
On the positive side,there is the opportunity to refresh and recalibrate.Taking a break from the known gives new perspective on what it is we do,the hows and the whys of those things.Modern life is not particularly geared to reflection,and it not often seen as a virtue.It is non – linear thinking and it is hard to show proof of its utilitarian worth.
And,as nature apprently abhors a vacuum,a hiatus is not nothing. It will fill itself with new inspiration and wonders ;the universe will pour in if we allow it.
My second son took a hiatus in study last year ,and worked a couple of jobs.He simply wasn’t ready for university study.That used to be called a’ gap’ year – like something you fall down. Maybe you never climb back out…. I have heard it called a ‘bridge’ year now and I think I like that better,the idea of travelling over the unknown to the other side,whatever that is.The universe is preparing us for the whatever next,often without us being conscious of it.
The photo above depicts low cloud hanging almost to ground level on a volcanic plateau.The wind has died away. Still,and just a bit eerie.That cloud actually obscures a spectacular,picturesque mountain.It’s there,it’s just not visible to you now.After the hiatus,when the winds pick up and disperse the cloud, the mountain ,the next thing ,will hopefully be clear.
Trees silhouetted in the pre-dawn light over my back fence. That time of day is special – night has faded but the sun is yet to rise, all things are in transition.
I have recently reflected a good deal about being in transition, as life events in the past year or two have placed me there, whether I like it or not. And you don’t have to like it, you just have to recognise when it is that time and place – and that it is an actual and important time and place , not a gap nor a void – make best use of this fallow period and be open to the possibility of some new things to come, albeit they have not arrived yet and you have no freaking clue what they might look like if and when they do.
This blog is littered with other images and thoughts about this phenomenon – refer the ‘Under The Wharf, Above The Waves’ series of posts or ‘Between The Lines’ ,just published, for instance. Others have probably described it much better. One who has delved deeply into the matter is William Bridges in his book ‘The Way Of Transition’, which has been both comfort and inspiration to me.
He says: ” All we know is that periodically , some situation or event deflects us from the path we thought we were on and , in so doing ends the life chapter we were in. In order to continue our journey ,we are forced to let go of the way we got that far. Having let go, we find ourselves in the wilderness for a time, and not until we have lived out that time can we come back around to a new beginning “.
Ebb Then Flood 