Trapeze swings of transformation

Hello TTS26 fans~

We are days away from greeting the newest alumnae at airports across the country. And yet, we don’t really know what to expect. I bet there are lots of questions – Have I changed? Has she changed? What should I do to welcome her home?. Or, maybe you are just plain excited and haven’t questioned how things will pan out past the initial hug. While I am no expert, I know there are many facets to leaving for a TTS semester, experiencing a semester, and then coming home from a semester, and each piece deserves a special space for all participants (students, teachers, friends and family).

This group has built a powerful community; and I suspect there will be many reunions in the future. I am continually impressed with their respect for one another, laughter, engagement with their surroundings and compassion. They made TTS26 a family, and currently, they are trying to figure out what it means to re-structure this family and return to their real families at home. For some there are many questions, for others there is excitement/angst/sadness. Our task as vicarious TTS26ers is to help with the transition back home after these gals spent 15 weeks in Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa building long lasting friendships through hot and cold, sandstorms and rainstorms, rafting and hiking, and classes everywhere in between.

I share the story below to help us open up to the idea of transformation and the unknown that lies beyond the horizon line of the present. However, I don’t think of coming home from TTS as something to fear, rather it is that growing space filled with wonderment. TTS26 has spent the semester living in the moment, finding inspiration and sparking passion for what may lie ahead. Some students found a new potential career, some witnessed a moment that made them stop and question EVERYTHING, and feel the power of the global community. They are coming home invigorated to continue this path, but wondering how to do it in a new community. As blog followers, we need to support this transition, motivation and curiosity. We need to listen, mentor, share and expose these ladies to outlets in our communities. We also need to remember that not every transition is instantaneous, everyone moves at their own speed.

Enjoy the story below envisioning it from your daughter’s perspective. She swung from one trapeze to board the plane to Seattle, caught another in southern Africa and is about to leap for the next one when she says good-bye to TTS26 and heads toward home.    

Stay tuned for more TTS specific blogs throughout the week. Teachers will post about transition activities and common hopes and fears with ideas to support the transition. We'll send mentor comments and more. 

Cheers,

Aunge

Fear of Transformation

*From the Essene Book of Days

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I'm either hanging on to a trapeze bar or swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I'm hurtling across space in between trapeze bars. Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar- of-the-moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I'm in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in a while, as I'm merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It's empty, and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart- of-hearts, I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present, well-known bar to move to the new one.

Each time it happens to me, I hope (no, I pray) that I won't have to grab the new one. But in my knowing place, I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar, and for some moment in time, I must hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I am filled with terror. It doesn't matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of unknowing, I have always made it. Each time I am afraid I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantee, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow, to keep hanging onto that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of "the past is gone, the future is not yet here." It’s called transition. I have come to believe that it is the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get punched.

I have noticed that, in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon as "nothing", a no-place between places. Sure the old trapeze-bar was real, and that new coming towards me, I hope, that's real, too. But the void in between? That's just a scary, confusing, disorienting "nowhere" that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible. What a waste! I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing, and the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the void, where the real change, the real growth occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out-of-control that can (but necessarily) accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth-filled, passionate, expansive moments in our lives.

And so, transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to “hang out" in the transition between the trapeze bars. Transforming our need to grab that new bar, any bar, is allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change really happens. It can be terrifying. It can be enlightening, in the true sense of the word. Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.