A Year of Noticing - Day 12
Paradoxes abound!
I’ve been noticing a lot of pardoxes around me these days… it has hit me in a more profound way this autumn season than in those past.
Everywhere I look I seem to notice the paradox of life and death, beginnings and endings, light and dark, like this tree… it literally looks half alive and half dead!!
So often I have thought of these as opposites, as in far end of different spectrums, but today I noticed myself thinking about the Chinese symbol of yin and yang - opposite, but interconnected. Actually, instead of “but”… what if we consider them to be opposite AND interconnected! It is BOTH/AND, the but seems like an after thought or an excuse instead of fully embracing the wholeness of the symbol and the meaning!
Like a coin, “heads and tails” - they are on opposite sides, yet still part of the same one material thing. Feminine and masculine, earth and sky - there are many dualities that exist, not on a binary - but more of a spectrum and all part of the same one being or idea.
And sometimes they exist together, like these flowers that are between seasons… and currently holds a little bit of both - life AND death!
Sometimes the contrast seems very stark, and yet I’ve been thinking a lot about how we often hold interconnected emotions together at one time… and I’m noticing how sometimes I am holding two seemingly opposite emotions together at one time - and maybe expanding our language to reflect this reality is helpful. Here’s a few I’ve heard and/or created:
Saditude = sad + gratitude (this is one I created)
Fantastamazing = fantastic + amazing (source unknown… akin to spectacular… something words almost can’t describe so these two superpowered emotions need to go together!)
Thrival = thriving + survival (from my friend Leslie Tagorda)
Nervcited = nervous + excited (often felt in anticipation of something new or different such as the start of school, leaving on a trip or trying something new… I heard it from my friend Rebecca, but am unsure of its origins).
I’m sure there are more… please share your ideas, and I will keep sharing mine too.
And just like the light that is now streaming in after the removal of my dying tree (I had to share after yesterday’s post because I don’t being left wondering… what does it look like now… here’s the before and after), let’s allow these new ideas to flow and notice them and then share!
May you embrace the both/and of your experiences today, and notice how that feels…