Consider the push. Forging ahead requires a push. Visions uniquely our own come without how-to manuals. Bushwhacking through uncharted territory requires leaning into the overgrowth with a sharpened blade. We invent the path as we go. We grope. We push into new growth – our own growth. This push, if undertaken in earnest and left unchecked, brings exhaustion, mental and physical.

Now consider the pull. Gravity’s lure of ease mesmerizes. Loosen our grip and natural pull takes over. Push’s antidote awaits in the embrace of the inward fold, in the beckoning of the body’s tune. Grant ourselves permission to recede back into the shadows, and we tap the ageless strength of ancient times, of the purely physical, of the collective subconscious, of myth and sweat.

Abandoned descent facilitates surging progress.

In the morning, I drive my vision forward with focus. I make the call, ask for help, write the proposal, launch the experiment, take the hit, mine the feedback, edit the plan, make amends, change in spite of hurt, learn, grow, grope. By lunchtime, depleted, I am a husk decelerated to a stop.

It’s time to fall.

Fingers uncurl from the gripped vision, allowing calculated thought to slip away. Like a plant, like vegetable matter hungry for nutrients, I take in food. I breathe a while, until movement entices and I take my body for a walk, a reunion of the senses. The basics of bathing slow my breathing. Finally, surrender to the world of story deepens the fall as a movie fills the darkened room with flickering light, lifts me far away, and triggers the mind behind my mind. The bigger mind than mine takes up the task of moving me toward my dreams. I dream within my dream. I descend into the light.

We are renewable resources driven by perpetual motion. Figure out how to match your forward thrust with freefall. Unlikely though it may seem, forward plus down equals up.

Flickr photo: Olivia sliding, by Anosmia.

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