Letting Go

This picture says it all.  In the process of change we must be willing to let go.  To let go of the comfort of the "pod"--the place we once knew, where we've come from, and what's familiar.  My fear rises to the surface when I think of this.  I remind myself that the fear is old, and not helpful, and it comes forward for acknowledgment and release.   And then I look at the gift I get to take with me when I let go.  There is the seed of my huge new life--the essence of my becoming--that goes with me and flies on the breeze.  It finds fertile soil, waits for the right conditions, and then it slowly begins to emerge with a life force of its own.  All things move in a natural order and progression.  It is my job to stay in and with the unfolding; to remain engaged in the process.

"Only to the extent that we let go into change can we live in harmony with those around us and with our own true nature.  No matter what the situation, awakening requires trust:  trust in the greater cycles of life, trust that something new will eventually be born, trust that whatever it is, is perfect.  Wise letting go is not a detached removal from life.  It is the heart's embrace of life itself, a willing opening to the full reality of the present."                              -Jack Kornfield