Possibility as nurturance

The willingness to make space for what could be

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A song I’ve been enjoying:

A lush hike in Eugene, Oregon — 2010.

This week, I took my daughter on an adventure to one of my most beloved places — Point Reyes. I timed the drive perfectly to her nap and she peacefully slept the entire way there while I listened to music, felt space, and contemplated the moment I was in, letting the coastal breeze reach me through the window. Even a few months ago, I couldn’t have imagined having the capacity to take her somewhere outside of town alone. It all felt like too much. I felt incapable, afraid, and exhausted — so much so that it just seemed easier to stay put. Yet staying put made me feel less and less like myself. I was isolated and sinking inside at home, wondering when I’d get to be part of the world again, wondering when I’d get to do the things I love again, wondering how I’d possibly find myself again.

In the season I’m currently in, I’m being reminded of the fact that everything changes. Everything shifts. Everything turns a tide eventually, even when we have no idea how or when it will happen. We morph back into place or transform into a new shape entirely. We release and bloom again. We become ourselves over and over, through the mud and muck and distance from our own knowing. We reconnect, reattach, remember. And it doesn’t require us to have it all together 100% of the time, or never forget what’s true, or always know what to do with our own lostness. It just requires us to be willing to open up to the possibility of what could happen so that when we’re ready, we allow it.

I cried walking along the coast with her in my arms, the glistening wonder in her eyes at the vision of a foggy scenic morning, her delight in reaching for ferns and lace lichen and the feeling of earth beneath her. I cried reflecting on my path, on all the lost places I’ve emerged from within myself, on all the ways I’ve continued growing deeper and deeper into who I am in spite of all the hard spots and difficulty and fear. I cried feeling the wisp of cool wind reddening my cheeks, feeling my body where it was, feeling so alive. I cried with relief and with grief, with all of it.

Then, on Friday, I took my daughter to a music class in the park for the first time. I sat behind her on our blanket and witnessed pure joy and curiosity take over her body as she held new modes of making sound, observed other babies and children singing and swaying, and found herself in a new form. I watched her become more of herself. I watched her discover something new, discover new capabilities, discover new expressions and sounds and movement. And again, my eyes welled up at the sight of possibility both creating an experience and being created by an experience.

Sweet scenes from music class and the coast.

When we’re deep in one place, it’s hard to envision making it to another — especially when we’re in a place we don’t want to be and are trying to imagine making it through to some “other side”. I find this to be true both personally and collectively: it’s hard to envision a more nourishing life when ours feels bleak, and it’s hard to envision a more nourishing world when ours feels like it’s drowning. Yet when I think back on my life and on the changes I’m currently swirling through, possibility lies at the center. It has always been there, an anchor grounding me and a lighthouse pointing me toward something different when different is what was needed. Possibility is what has allowed life to unfold in ways I couldn’t have imagined but still somehow believed in. It is what has gotten me through so many dark moments and seasons, so many places I thought I’d never emerge from.

Possibility is almost like spirituality. It requires us to believe in and orient toward it, even when we have no proof. It asks us to make space for magic, to make room for something beyond ourselves and our circumstances, to hold it in our hearts before it even becomes anything other than something imagined. And when something takes form in ways we hoped it would, possibility asks us to keep holding onto it, keep using it as a resource, keep allowing it to hold us when we don’t know what to do or how to keep going.

I find possibility to be deeply comforting and supportive, to be igniting and energizing, to be softening and spacious. It is one of the most important parts of growth, of moving toward what we want, of believing in what could be. And it is always available, always there when we choose to look, always waiting for us to let it carry us when our legs are giving out, always a way of being we can return to. I know I return to it often because I forget it often — and the beauty of it is that we can return to it over and over, forever. It has kept me going through this season I’m in.

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Ways you might anchor into possibility:

Make a list of things you never thought could happen that did.
Explore past versions of you you weren’t sure you’d grow out of but have.
Notice the shifts that have happened in ways you couldn’t have anticipated.
Pick a color that feels like possibility and add more of it to your home.
Vision the kind of life and world that would bring you deep joy and nourishment.
Ask yourself the simple question, “what else could be possible here?”
Do something you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t done in a while.
Make room for things to go differently than you assume they’ll go.
Look to the people and organizations leading with possibility.
Clear your physical space to make room for something new to come in.
Drop the notion that you already know how everything will end up.
Use your creativity to envision the best possible outcome.
Turn to plants, to nature, to the continual evolution of the natural world.
Trust in the idea that nothing is permanent as a reminder that something else could always become.

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What would you add to the list? How else might you let possibility take up a little more space in your heart, your spirit? How else might possibility become a resource, a guidepost, a grounding form of medicine to return to when everything feels too hard?

Possibility isn’t about forced positivity or false hope. It’s about taking responsibility for change in ways we can, and choosing to hold space for what could be when we can’t. It’s about looking toward what else could be. It’s about taking one small action when we feel stuck to remember where momentum can take us. It’s about orienting toward something greater, something more meaningful, something more nourishing. It’s about reaching beyond what we see and know and toward what we want, what we seek, what we dream of and what we desire. It’s about gifting ourselves the experience of holding onto something other than doom. It’s about looking to nature as a teacher, looking to past versions of ourselves as proof of what can change, looking to elders and visionaries that represent new ways of being, of living, of seeing.

When I question whether or not I will ever figure out who I am or how to exist in this new phase of life I’m in, I will remember walking on the coast with my daughter. I will remember her shaking the little wooden maraca and experiencing something she didn’t even know existed before that moment. I will remember all the past versions of myself who weren’t sure they’d make it through. And I will remember what else could be, what else could become, what else is possible when I just choose the willingness to orient toward it.

I hope you can offer yourself the same when you find yourself in moments of stuckness or stagnancy, when you aren’t sure anything will ever change, when you aren’t sure how anything will ever become different. Maybe you don’t need to know how or when — maybe you don’t need to change it all right this second — maybe you don’t need to figure out how to control or manage everything. Maybe, right now, you just need to choose to orient toward possibility. To let possibility be an anchor. To let possibility be itself and see what unfolds from there. To hold onto possibility and see what happens next.

△ The exploration of herbalism

△ This podcast

△ The words and work of Joanna Macy

△ How to do anything

△ I really love the somatic work Luis Mojica is sharing.

△ Text your friends

△ The reverence Rosemary Gladstar holds for plants inspires me.

△ This beautiful new deck from Kim Krans

△ Restorative yoga

△ I’ve been wearing the same clothes often for the past few years and not purchasing many new clothes — it’s been so transformative in how I think about fashion, my body, consumerism, and not needing to “keep up” or always have the newest slow fashion brand in my closet in order to be enough. There are so many practices, from our wardrobe to what we keep in our homes, that can impact the way we feel — and it’s profound to take notice of them.

With care,
Lisa