Flourishing with the Serendipity of life
Travel is a great teacher. Travel within ourselves and also the travel around our beautiful planet meeting new people, cultures, points of view – enjoying but not being limited or overly identified by cultural beliefs so that we can find a relationship with ourselves and others. This is also true for the travel and explorations within ourselves. Not being limited by beliefs, so we can shine a light on aspects of ourselves, that can be brought into a fuller relationship with our wholeness.
REMEMBER IN UNCHARTED WATERS THAT WE ARE THE OCEAN
Although taking the initial step into unknown territory can bring some trepidation, once in the unknown and moving with it, there is a freedom and excitement that emerges, a curiosity. To be in a place of vibrant listening and engagement, not actively searching or expecting an outcome. In listening with a sense of trust in whatever could emerge, the Serendipity that is underpinning all of our lives will gently come to the fore as a primary orchestrator. Even in what may seem the direst circumstances – it can still be there to soften an otherwise harsh or cruel and senseless time.
SERENDIPITY IS AN ACTUAL CAPACITY
Serendipity is often described as an unexpected surprise and fortuitous event. A deeper understanding of serendipity is that it is an actual capacity rather than an event. This means we can develop the capacity to behold and appreciate the emerging events that we are participating as. I am choosing to say “as” rather than “in”. Because We, You or I, the participants and the event, destiny, predestination, and creation are one and the same. Serendipity is in the threads that keep life flourishing, renewing and growing.
INNOVATION AND EVOLUTION IN THE ANOMALY, THE REVOLUTION BEGINS
In Serendipity emerges the anomaly. A new opening or revelation and therefore innovation and transformation – expressions of evolution. To be qualified, not necessarily quantified initially. Yet through interdependence may ripple out in unexpected places. By procuring the capacity to be an open state, being receptive, Serendipity orchestrates through revealing an innovative and evolutionary event or process. This is my understanding of what a revolution is. I could say with much that is happening in the world we need a revolution in the usual sense it is used. Yet revolution I feel comes from a capacity to procure an inner state that informs how we relate and creates with and as the world. We can modify language and culture, yet in ways, this is still more akin to changing our clothes. And as we are seeing easily manipulatable and controllable. What I am talking about is change, deeply rooted in the structure of who we are, and therefore how we are relating.
THE HUMMINGBIRD EFFECT
I have a fondness for Hummingbirds, and for the understanding of the Hummingbird Effect, which is, in essence, another way of perceiving Serendipity revealing in biology and nature, and its capacity to be a way-shower for innovation and change. The Hummingbird Effect was coined by Steven Johnson. He speaks, that innovation in one area can trigger unpredictable and unexpected advancement in other seemingly unrelated realms. What he observed is that the availability of sugar in flowers inspired hummingbirds’ ability to extract it while remaining motionless in flight. This is also an example of bio-intelligence ~ our inherent creativity and versatility, as well as the interdependence of life.
“You wouldn’t have thought that the evolution of pollen would alter the design of a hummingbird’s wing. But that is the way change happens.” — Steve Johnson from “How We Got To Now, Six Innovations That Made The Modern World.
SERENDIPITY THE UNFAMILIAR AND UNKNOWN
Serendipity is in something new, something unfamiliar, in the unknown, that which is hidden behind the veil of our perceptions. As a capacity, it is being poised, being suspended by what is Known and so explicit and the Unknown – the yet to be revealed, the implicit. The Known and Unknown are one in flowing wholeness. We can see this in the blooming of buds into flowers, the unfolding of an acorn into an oak tree, a caterpillar into a butterfly, in our own embryological creation. This is not just shedding our skins, this is transmutation into another form, and what I feel always has been present within, yet implicit, and so for us to discover in our unfolding. The eternal expressing through ephemeral means in infinite ways. Cultivating the capacity for Serendipity to emerge can come in many ways. May we keep procuring the art of listening, stay engaged in our unfolding, serenade the capacity to behold and find some Serendipity in our lives, where something new can emerge that has been in the background or implicit to our awareness, and most of all share it with others. Living this way is a quiet revolution not dependent on culture, yet can impact culture in many ways. It’s living as the actual movement, the flow of intelligence in every moment and recognizing it everywhere.