A word on...
ACCEPTANCE
Dearest ones,
Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance. Acceptance.
ACCEPTANCE ACCEPTANCE ACCEPTANCE ACCEPTANCE
acceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptance
a C C e p t A N c e
I open the draft of my fourth book – a “quote book” – and enter accept into the search field.
“Acceptance precedes positive change.”
Really? Is this all you’ve got?
There’s a quote about accepting our failures and really owning up to them. Doesn’t work for me now, though, as I’m really really deeply wildly recklessly plodding my way into a landscape where SUCCESS and FAILURE just don’t exist.
Is it really possible to fail? And then, is it really possible to succeed? What if it’s all experience, no matter how it we’ve been taught to quantify it.
I diverge.
acceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptanceacceptance ACCEPTANCE acceptance. Acceptance.
Last week Wednesday, it was a new moon. Otherwise known as the “dark moon.” That time of the month when the moon is the least visible in the sky. Why? Because down here on Earth, we are viewing the side of her that is furthest from the Sun. We are staring up at the side she keeps from the light, the warmth. The part that MUST be kept from the light, because that’s how physics works.
Two round balls – Sun and Moon – face one another, one side will always be facing away. And since it’s the Sun that makes the Moon visible to us, one day a month, the Moon is invisible to us.
Acceptance. Pure facts. No success or failure here.
On Wednesday, the moon was dark, invisible, quiet – and wise. Very very wise.
On her dark side.
She asked, what are you wondering? What is new around here? What do you want to see more of this month? What do you want to understand? What do you want to pour into me that I can turn towards the sun? Methodically, day by day, I will turn to face the sun. I can light up what you’re wondering.
So, little one, what are you wondering?
“What is acceptance?” I ask her.
“I hear so much about it. I understand that it’s a big word. That there’s something really important about it. It’s often connected with surrender, another big buzzy social-media drenched concept. Dear Moon, what is acceptance, really? And how can it help me now? As in, RIGHT now.”
Little human, hello. Let us begin by defining the word.
Acceptance is the state you reach once you accept. And what does it mean “to accept?”
ACCEPT: TO RECEIVE WILLINGLY
ACCEPT: TO BE ABLE TO TAKE OR HOLD
ACCEPT: TO GIVE ADMITTANCE OR APPROVAL OF
ACCEPT: TO ENDURE WITHOUT PROTEST OR REACTION
ACCEPT: TO REGARD AS PROPER, NORMAL, OR INEVITABLE
ACCEPT: TO RECOGNIZE AS TRUE
“Oh holy great god, Moon. Are you effing with me? That is a serious ask. Acceptance is all of that?”
“Yup. Different angles of the same thing.
Acceptance is seeing things for what and how they really are. The factual side of things, in a sense. Even though EVERYTHING is up for interpretation – and you are constantly narrating things so that they fit into your idea of how things are – there are some facts. These include:
There is war
Your kids are teenagers
You are 50
You all die some day
The Sun rises every day, regardless
time for a break
“OK, Moon. I get it.”
“Great. Now, listen here. This is the juicy bit of acceptance. Some things just are and won’t change. Your reaction is what matters and all that. You know this. That is where the power lives. But this, darling. I think you’ve forgotten this part.
“You don’t have to like things as they are or agree with them or even understand them to accept them. To accept anything in life, you don’t have to like it. Some things you actually aren’t meant to like and still they require your acceptance.
“You know EXACTLY what I mean.”
“Yes, Moon. I know EXACTLY what you mean.
I wake in the darkness of the early morning with a heaviness unlike anything I’ve ever known.
acceptance
Here is how things are – right now.
I live in this house in this town in this region in this country in this life.
So many things about it, right now. So many things about it…
acceptance
Gratitude and grief stand face to face, holding soft hands and staring in one another’s open eyes.
acceptance
Hard. Soft. Like it or not.
acceptance
This is the acceptance the darkest November moon is teaching me ♥️
As she starts getting brighter, every day.
acceptance.
Alright then.
It’s not about what we see
It’s how we see it
Life and all the stuff in our life is a matter of perspective
You may find this extremely provocative. I do
My suffering is not because my life is filled with complications like cranky teenagers on a school morning or living in a location that doesn’t feel right at all anymore
It’s because of how I am viewing these things. I don’t have to like them to accept them. And I do have to accept them if I want to change them.
Provocative. Poignant. And a real part of the practice (of being human)
Remember again
Being a human is a process
A practice
A lifelong one
We’re here to learn how to be human by being human
And then we die
Beautiful poetry, actually.
And then we all die. Which makes this process – these moments, this life – all the much more precious. For it is limited.
Acceptance.
My grief like a dying body. When I see it as a messenger of the ending of something, I feel such tenderness for it. As it rises and peaks, I hear its song of lament at what once was but no longer can remain. I watch it as it shows me how beautiful the gift of temporarilty is. That I can manifest all my great dreams and still those will die. That everything I love I will lose. Everything. As my grief dances before me, I understand that it really is love through and through. Spinning a story of devotion. Of grace. Of longing for the beauty of this world. The magic of being granted flesh and blood to move around in for a time.
Acceptance
is love with somewhere to go
Grief
is love I am giving somewhere to go
I close with this over 2,000-year-old quote. Wisdom that really does last lifetimes.
“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
– Hippocrates
Acceptance.
Oh and yeah, “Acceptance precedes positive change.”
Back to that.
Life is always changing. If I want “positive” change – for things to turn towards the bright side of the moon – acceptance first.
Like it or not.
We got this.
I love you,
Sarah♥️
From polarity til oneness❤️