Everything ends. It is true.
And. That is not the only truth that starts with E.
There are many truths that begin (and end) with E.
Effort and effortlessness.
They are twins, did you know?
Sometimes the thing that is needed is EFFORT. Showing up. Putting some heart in it, as my imaginary personal trainer would say.
And sometimes the thing that is needed is EFFORTLESSNESS. Releasing expectations, softening, letting the thing that is happening just happen in the way that it happens to be happening in this moment.
They go really well together, effort and effortlessness.
A lot of people try to make one of these their modus operandi.
I find, for me, everything works a lot better when I call on both.
Emergence.
Another truth of life is that we cannot always see progress. We mostly cannot see progress.
That’s because it’s happening under the surface.
Truth of life. Here’s another one: things can take time to emerge, and we don’t always know how long (or how miraculously quickly, in some cases) that will be.
So we think we’re procrastinating when actually what is happening is percolating.
We think we are late or behind or not good enough or avoiding, when actually we are emerging. The thing that is coming is emerging.
We turn emergence into emergencies. We think something is terribly wrong because we can’t see “results”, and then we panic. The results are emerging.
Guilt makes it hard to see what is emerging. Letting things take their time makes it easier.
This is sometimes called experimenting, and sometimes it is called embracing, two words that begin with E.
So many beautiful things that begin with E.
I want to write about all of them.
About Echoing and Efficiency. Emptying and Exploring.
Effervescence. This might be my favorite word ever.
Expanding and Experimenting. Ease and Easing.
Eliminating. Exulting. Expecting. Evaporating. Energizing. Evolving.
Endlessness. Experience. Editing. Efficacy. Expansiveness.
Exuberance and Extravagance. Excitement and Enthusiasm.
Equality. Enough and Enoughness. Evenness. Empathy. Endurance. Efficiency.
Edges. Which are boundaries (B) and containers (C) and dance (D). And also Assertiveness (A).
Elegance, and elegant solutions. Elements. Expanding elements.
And epiphanies.
E is for Entry. And also for Exit.
Embarking, a beautiful word that starts with E.
Conscious entry: preparing for the voyage and saying hello to what is coming.
Intentional exit: thank you, thing that was.
This is important, because everything ends.
And, also:
Everything Ends. It really does.
Everything ends, dies, reconfigures. And this is okay. This is the way of things, and it is okay. Sometimes it hurts so much. And it is okay. It hurts and it is okay. It is not okay and it is okay.
The hurting ends too.
Ends, dies, reconfigures, changes shape, becomes new.
Endings are doors, and so they are also openings.
Echoes.
I was talking to Incoming Me (aka slightly wiser me) last week about this summer, when everything was disintegrating.
Everyone kept saying how when one door closes another one opens. Or that god doesn’t close a door without opening a window. I wanted to kick them all in the shins.
She said, “It’s the order that’s wrong. It isn’t that one thing closes and then another opens. It’s this: the opening you automatically head towards needs to shut now so that you can see the opening that is better for you, which is currently invisible to you, because you haven’t been paying attention.”
I don’t know if this is true. It feels true in the context of the specific thing that happened this summer, and I can feel that truth spreading through my body. It is warm and expansive, and it echoes.
Everything ends, and nothing is wrong. Everything ends and it is my job to pay attention to right-now so I can see the beautiful beginnings that I hadn’t even noticed were already here.
May it be so! And come play with me.
This week is Rally (Rally!), my favorite thing in the world, and it is Rally E, full of things that begin with E. And it is also American Thanksgiving aka Hermitsgiving (for me), and it is also Hannukah. So it is kind of a big week.
It will require Effort and Effortlessness. Emptying and Emergence. (I am smiling at this one because as my Year of Emptying and Replenishing heads inexorably towards its own ending, I am looking warmly towards the coming year, which will be the Year of Emerging and Receiving).
If you want to drop some wishes in for yourself for this week or this year, you are welcome to.
If you want to whisper words or sound effects that start with E, go for it. If you want to share in any of qualities, you can. They work like the salves in the Friday Chicken: just take some, there is always more.
If you want to throw some superpowers into the pot, that is welcome.
Also, Agent White pointed out that Good Es sounds like Good Ease, and goodies. So there’s that.
Waving from the Playground! Whispering loving spells that begin with E, for myself, and for anyone who wants…
Follow
This week, as I Rally from afar, I am Embracing my Eccentricities.
I am also dreaming dreams of this YEAR, and of all the YEARS to come.
<3
E is the sound I make when I’m excited. EEeeeeeeee!!!!
Elation!
Elasticity.
Elysian Fields.
Ecstasy.
Ebb (and flow.)
Earnestness (the importance of being!)
Extraordinariness.
This is specific-religion-y, so discard if not useful, but ‘Examen’ is the name of one of the loveliest rituals that I practice when I remember to, taught by St. Ignatius of Loyola. http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/
And of course, our favorite thing, the Emergency Calming Techniques. š
Elation! Elan! Elegance! Eating Eclairs and Edamame! Eliades Ochoa!
And so many Es (so much ease) from the Fluent Self practices: Embarking, Entry and Exit.
And the YEAR of Emptying and REplenishing. Such a gift!
So I’m leaving some eglantine, because i cant think of other E flowers.
Lovely, as usual. Some of my favorite E words:
Ephemeral and Evanescent (but also Endless and Evermore)
Equipoise
Endeavor
Evolve
Enact
Euphonious
Evensong
Esplanade
Epiphany
EQUIPOISE!!! Today was the right day for me to be reminded of this word, thank you! <3
YES!!! Yes to the Year of Emerging and Receiving!!!
May it be so!!!
I love this.
I have made a point recently on noticing emergenceā¦things developing or progressing even when the overall thing isn’t exactly There Yet or Finished.
There is a lot more ease and space around things when I enjoy the Emergence, the process not the product. I am way less hard on myself. And i also laugh at the beliefs I have (can’t help having) that ‘it’ may actually ever be complete or ‘done’.
Another timely reminder of cosmic coincidental clues. Ending and it’s ok and it’s not ok. Emptying and emerging. So many wonderful E qualities and words. A few more, perhaps (probably) repetitions, which is good, because they will be subconscious…
Echoes
Enchantment
Elephants
Everywhere
East
Endurance
Elect
And…
Extra
I embrace the echoes of E-s reflecting around and can’t wait to come back and find more E-words.
Equanimity, which is sometimes used as a sucky yoga word for “looking comfortable in Lycra”. Nonetheless it really is a beautiful thought that there can be a space of peace in the midst of things emerging and ending and sometimes enduring.
Emergence really is my favourite word ever. Or at least since I read Steven Johnson’s book of the same name. Ironic story: my copy was eaten by termites while I had it in storage. Although I guess you’d have to know the book to know why that is ironic.
I’ve read Emergence, so I do know! Huzzah!
Emergence is also 1 of my favorite words, for the same reason. It is a concept that is salient pretty much continuously for me. (So excellent to have a word for it.)
At yoga this morning, the teacher was guiding the class through Standing Bow, and I am reminded of what he said in reading what incoming-Havi had to say about doors closing and opening, because a tendency of some students at the studio (myself included) is to dive forward before we’ve pulled our back leg sufficiently into position, so he urged us to picture ourselves as standing up against a door that isn’t going to open before we’ve done the preparation to go through it while keeping our balance…
…which, of course, could easily apply to a number of things outside the studio that I am feeling
impatienteager about. Hmmm….Ehoah! Complete harmony within Nature.
Explore. Experiment. Experience.
Excel. Elaborate.
Engage.
Exist.
All qualities I want to bring further into my life.
I’m coming to terms with Emergence, and its relation to Set Back and Opportunity. I need to work on Exisiting, and not trying to rush towards Future Me. (I’ll get there. Recent realizations about patterns and Activities that Bring Joy and Spoons have helped reconfirm/reassure this to Current Me.)
Any suggestions on Rallying from afar?
The word “effervescence” is the best word for playing the Hangman word game (or, I suppose, a Wheel of Fortune game). It’s a long word and then you guess “E,” and you get:
e–e–e–e–e
Pretty cool. š
Err, the – – turned into — back there. But the same pattern:
e – – e – – e – – e – – e
pretty!
Emerald! Esperanza! EXPONENTIAL! Extending. Exerting. Exonerated. Egalitarian. Exegesis. Enormity. Enveloping. Elongating. Edible.
There are so many excellent E-words already here! My favorites include euphoria, ecstasy, exuberance, effervescence, enthusiasm, eagerly, evolving, exploring, experimenting, ebb, epiphany, experience.
But 1 favorite I haven’t yet seen … eggs. In 2013 I realized a long-held dream of (metaphorically) laying my own egg, and hatching myself. (Sort of like a phoenix, but with eggs, not fire.)
Reading all of these delicious words reminds me of a Mental Floss post about the happiest-sounding words in English. So many of these words are on the list, or belong on it.
Also, “Putting some heart in it”! Havi, your imaginary personal trainer is very wise.
E, for me, is always for elephants and equanimity.
Also, equipage, the Spanish word for luggage.
And for Eeeee Eee Eeee: A Novel, by Tao Lin, in which dolphins (D) and Domino’s Pizza (D+) figure heavily.
Also known as āit is easier to change course if I am not blaming past-me for the current courseā.
Ahaha, so this is what drew me to read back a few weeks! YES.
Muchas gracias!