Like all of us, this past year plus has been a daily and even moment to moment exercise in trying to catch up to the reality that stands before me. Sometimes I am graceful, accepting, and even grateful. At other times I am tense, striving, angry and frustrated. In those times, the Buddha would tell me I am suffering because I am unwilling/unable to be with what stands before me without wishing or needing it to be different. Without grabbing, pushing away, or trying to manage what is most decidedly beyond my sphere of influence.

But in this day and age, what exactly would that reality be? The old, broken down dying systems crumbling (thank god) before my very eyes? Or would it be the gathering voices and movements saying there is another way? It is both, and it is neither. And that is maddening. We are not where we once were. But neither are we where we most want to be. Instead, we are in a place unto itself. A place that is neither here nor there. A place that does not feel like a place as much as it feels like something to get away from.

The place we are in, is Transition with a capital “T.” The territory of where the old still stakes its claim while meeting up with what is yet to be born. Where hardest of all, the old must die to give way for what is coming. A space I remember well when I was delivering my first baby. For when I got to the moment I am describing, I experienced a felt sense of annihilation of what had been, without knowing what would come. In that moment, I left my body. It felt easier to leave then to be with such a Great Unknown. It’s funny to think back on that moment, and how I uttered “I am out of here” inside my own mind. Thankfully, my midwife felt the leaving and called me back, saying “Susan, we need you here.”

Yes. We need all of us here now. Every day. In every way that we can muster. Every one of us choosing to be here as fully and authentically as we can. Feeling all that we are feeling, while being open to being broken open in preparation for some possibility we cannot even name, yet somehow yearn for. A time way past due. A time not tied to our limitations, fears or habits. Instead, a place of pure potential and possibility. Not yet here, but arriving.

This is not easy to do. It would be so much easier to leave. So much easier to choose “I am out of here.” This is exactly where we need our midwives; those people and perspectives to remind us of both the reality that stands before us, and the one to come. To remind us that we are needed. Here. Now. To remind us that yes, we can do this. That in reality, there is no other choice.

While we continue to labor, not yet with what is wanting to be born, who and what are your midwives? What keeps you here, and open to what is coming?