Through the Fog

by Simon Goland, January 28, 2014

fogFog. There was fog at the airport when I was leaving Vancouver. There was heavy fog, early in the morning, when I arrived to Delhi and was driving to the guest house where I am staying for the next two weeks, while I teach at the School for Inspired Leadership (SOIL). The next morning, as I go out to move my body and get a bit of food, there is still fog. Different country and continent, yet the fog is the same. It obfuscates, and it makes clear. Hard to see much at distance, and so the immediate becomes clearer and, somehow, more palpable. A metaphor, in a way, to the fact that when “out there” is not visible, the “in here” manifests into a tangible experience.

I have barely arrived, yet it has been a hard trip already. Crowded planes and a horrible check-in process in Amsterdam are not the reasons, though they did play a tiny part. This time, it is more the timing, as Alison and I just moved to our new place, and have barely started settling in. That is also just a part of the reason, and also not the main one.

The real reason is much deeper than that. “Light will someday split you open,” wrote Hafez once, and it feels like the light he talked about is the one that comes through the fog for me this time.

“Someday after we have mastered the winds, the waves, and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for the second time in the history of the world, human beings will have discovered fire.” – Teilhard de Chardin

I am thinking about my life journey, through the lens of “growing into love.” Falling and stumbling into it too, at times. Crawling. There were also moments of being dragged into it, I am sure. “A long and winding road” indeed, with detours, and side roads, and times of heading in the opposite direction as well. Yet, throughout it all, learning what doesn’t work, where I show up as “less than,” where I am holding back, and also the moments and experiences of being fully open, alive, and transformatively touched by the raw beauty, power, and grace of it.

One can say that I might be a slow learner; after all, I am over 51 and am finally growing into love, unlike ever before. The past prepares us for the future, if we but learn from it. I am feeling eternally grateful for this past, for the lessons given, and for those teachers who gracefully and patiently (though definitely not always) have been around to make sure I take the next step on this journey. One step at a time. The fact that I am where I am right now, and with who I am, is a testament.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi

Fog. Hides many things. But not love.