There is a beautiful poem by John O’ Donohue called “Fluent”. It is not long. It’s simply:
I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.
I can still remember the first time I heard these lines. I was with a gang of fellow mindfulness practitioners on a walk in Devil’s Glen in County Wicklow. As we walked alongside the Vartry river, we came to a bend and stopped. We all stood silently watching the water flow when our colleague broke the silence to recite O’Donohue’s words. It was through the quiet that she remembered the poem and was inspired to speak. There was no expectation but the conditions were right. Whether we knew it or not, it was a beautiful moment of reflecting on, and an example of, Greogory Kramer’s concept of ‘trust emergence’.
Trusting emergence is the ability to let go of force and the need for control. Instead, we might trust that through the small simple actions that we put in place, something new and fresh will unfold.
Now this could be what some might call wholesome and earthy, such as planting an unnamed and forgotten seed that we have found in the potting shed . We can plant that seed in a pile of compost in a warm, well-lit space and water that seed when the soil is dry. We might not know what type of plant pops up or whether it will pop up but we trust that something will emerge from the collective actions taken. (Even if it is a blister from all of the watering that we do!)
Just like the plant, the blister and a flowing river, we are always emerging from the conditions we create through the actions we take. And while we cannot say what it is or how it is we might emerge, in order to find joy in the surprise, we need to be unattached to outcome.
This is the same for our meditation practice. Some days we might come to sit, use the breath, extend kindness and care to ourselves and feel quite settled. Other times not. However, if we can remain open and without agenda to whatever happens, we might be able to keep going with the practice and not give up. We can trust that, over time, something fresh and new will emerge, such as a new way of relating to the unfolding moments of our practice, and in turn of our life.
While ultimately we have no control as to exactly how our lives will go, it is the small actions that we take that shape things. And if we can remain open and curious and maybe even a small bit unattached to outcome and the need to control, we might be able to flow like the river, carried by the surprise of our own unfolding. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
If you would like to practice letting go and simply being with our moment to moment experience (and to move toward trusting emergence!), why not join us at the Sanctuary’s Tuesday morning online community meditation? We would love to see you there.
-Jane
Click below to listen to and practice a Trust Emergence meditation:
My Silent Place 
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