I choose to be bewildered

Georgi Atanasov (1876-1951) Landscape in the Gloaming c.1910 Sofia National Gallery Bulgaria

In May, celebrant and author Tess Ward wrote this, and here in August it feels as pertinent as ever:

The internet is awash with people trying to make sense of this time but this is a new time, a strange time, a never before time.  Rumi famously said “Exchange your cleverness for bewilderment”.  I choose to avoid the internet for my own self-care and stay bewildered.  I want to allow the wildness of myself and the earth around me, and this virus that we cannot entirely defend ourselves against, to be as they are.  I want to have the experience and let the meaning come later – and when it wants to come.  I want to delay the predictions.  I have heard them all from outright despair to blithe optimism for ourselves and the planet. I choose to be bewildered. The poet Kaveh Akbar commented that “in order to be bewildered, you have to be able to wonder.” The strangeness of this time helps me to wonder.  I wonder at the quiet, at the birds singing or flying with twig in beak, at the new normal of crossing the street to show you care, at the slow motion of time, suspended as in grief or new parenthood.

Read Tess Ward’s full post here