Image: “The Portal” by Brian Varcas
The Wisdom of Confusion
by
Sarah Varcas
As the Sun and Neptune square each other we are invited to embrace a state of not knowing as readily as we would embrace clarity, to welcome confusion as fully as incontrovertible fact, for it is within the shadows of the unknown that we can discover deep wisdom now. As the Sun entered Sagittarius we were invited to commit as deeply as possible to this process of awakening, which is turning out somewhat different to how many anticipated! This current relationship between Neptune and the Sun reminds us both how challenging the path can be and how mysteriously beautiful. Which of those we experience depends a great deal on our attitude in the coming days. If we are seeking sure-fire security and black and white answers we may end up frustrated and despondent at the lack of so-called ‘progress’. If, however, we can recognise the folly of seeking certainty in an infinite universe in a state of continual flux, we can step into the mystery at the heart of existence and recognise the peace which awaits when we release the need for knowledge and simply ‘be’ for a while.
Relinquishing the need for answers is a tough one though. As human beings we are programmed to question and analyse, to want to understand and in understanding, control and influence outcomes. The question ‘why’ is forever on our lips and in our minds, especially when it comes to why life is a certain way, why things don’t happen as we want them to, and the age old inquiry – why do bad things happen to good people? We want life to make sense, to follow certain rules, to guarantee that this follows that like night follows day. In short, we want to be in control of life, not the other way around. A lack of answers and the dearth of knowledge it implies unnerves us, making our search for them more frantic or our faith increasingly frail.
At this point, however, the heavens declare that logical answers are the wrong currency in which to trade. They won’t sustain us through times such as these, for human, egoic, mind-made logic is not capable of embracing the depth of the mystery at the heart of life. We cannot reduce life to a satisfying and solvable equation when we are a mere speck within a universe so vast we can barely begin to imagine the complexities of its component parts. If we refuse to accept this unfathomable aspect of being we simply create unnecessary suffering for ourselves, demanding that life be reduced to its lowest common denominator to produce a solution which satisfies our tiny minds.
To view life and its ups and downs as something to be deconstructed and then controlled won’t work now. It’s too limiting, too restrictive for what the cosmos has in store. We are being invited to open our minds so wide they can never be closed again, to expand our hearts so completely that nothing and no-one is apart from us. And as we offer ourselves up to the ever-expanding universe in all its magnificent mystery we are received with infinitely open arms by life itself, not in a contract which sees us getting what we think we deserve, but instead in such a way that we can relax into the mystery, embrace it, live it, enjoy the wonder of ‘what happens next?’ and the freedom of ‘anything is possible’.
Whilst the mind will argue and fight for reason, the heart knows that the deepest and most enduring truths exist beyond words or concepts, reason or logic. It knows that we must let go of needing to know, control and understand in order to live the truth which arises from the well of the divine within us, each moment afresh and completely alive. It’s okay not to know, to be clueless in the face of the vast night sky which reminds us that the deepest truths live in darkness where the mind fears to tread. We can relax now, in all our confusion and inner-conflict, let it all go and in doing so recognise that the mind is rarely on our side when we want the deepest truths for it knows the threat they pose to its domain of reason, order and logic. It fears the unknown and makes us fear it too. In the coming days the Sun and Neptune remind us that it’s okay not to know, for in the absence of answers lays the gateway to the divine.
Sarah Varcas
