IN THE SPACE OF NOT KNOWING

By Bonnie-Starr Mandell-Rice

I am, among other things, a writer. I have to remind myself of this today as I sit at the computer waiting for inspiration to come. I have been waiting for several days now, knowing that on the first of each month I send out an ezine with an article. Until this morning, “D(eadline) Day,” I have not felt pressured; I trust that the words will come. Besides, I write out of love not because I “should.” Yet now the time is past when I normally would have hit “send” on the ezine, and all my attempts at writing have been discarded. All that is left is this surrender: I don’t know what to write, so perhaps I simply will write about this not knowing.

Not knowing. I have been to this place before, not just about what to write but about many things: things as mundane as what to wear, as important as whether to quit my law practice, and as profound as what to say (or not to say) to someone who has experienced the loss of a loved one. Not knowing is not a comfortable place for many of us, particularly perhaps for those of us who like to think we are in control or who like to “take charge” and “make things happen.”

Control ultimately, however, is just an illusion. (We all find this out sooner or later when, despite all of our efforts and all of our doing, something happens that is beyond our ability to control.) When I let go of my need to control and of my insistence on doing things my way and in my time and simply surrender to the not knowing, something opens inside of me and creates space for something to flow through me. The “something” is inspiration (literally, breathing in prana/life force energy/Spirit). It is a “breath of fresh air.”

This space of not knowing is like a womb. To the uninitiated and the unacquainted it seems simply a dark and empty place, perhaps frightening for that reason. Like a mother’s womb, however, it is pregnant with possibilities. As time passes, those possibilities begin to take on form and movement. Eventually, in proper timing, one or more of those possibilities begins to emerge, and an idea, a solution, an answer is birthed.

We simply have to be patient. There can be no hurrying of the process, though hurrying it can be tempting. Those of the women reading this who have birthed a child may understand this temptation. I remember when I was pregnant with my first child. By the time I was four months pregnant, I was waddling like a duck. By the time I was five months pregnant, my doctor was scolding me for my weight gain – despite my persistent nausea and a diet consisting primarily of tomato and cucumber sandwiches (the only food I could keep down). By the time I was eight months pregnant and still nauseous, I was checking in with God: “Are you sure that nine months are necessary?” Then I would remind myself it was “just” another month and the healthy baby I would have would be worth the wait as well as all of the discomfort. And so it was.

And so it is. We may have to practice patience and bear a certain amount of discomfort while we reside in the place of not knowing, but if we stay in that space and do not force, what Life (which is another word for God) would birth through us will come in its proper and perfect time. What Life would birth through us is, I believe, always better than what we, by our (small/ego) selves alone, can conceive or achieve. For it – that which Life would birth through us – partakes of Life and carries its signature, its vibration, which is Love.

So this is written for all my readers with Love.

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