Set. Re-set.

The day is grey with a bit of blue coming through the clouds.  The temperature sits at 62 degrees fahrenheit and the air is moderate to good quality.  Today is Saturday and it is the first day of the fall equinox coming into being.

A lot of living is about getting to a place of centering or setting oneself so that being grounded gives us a sense that things are secure, stable, and clear.  But then life actually happens.  And things go sideways, people transition out of one's life, the everyday routine gets disrupted by storms, fires, quakes, and broken toilets. This is when one gets to actually experience what it means to be "set".  

Then the question gets answered:  How quickly can I get re-set?  It would not be natural for a human being not to be thrown off by unexpected and sometimes unwelcome events in life.  But does a person stay in that state of agitation, blur, or surrender?  How long will one remain stuck in that state of disrepair?  What happens while one is lost in space, not seeing a path through to what has to happen next?

Lately, the experience of responding to what is a slow but certain shift in life has come along and the shift requires a group to decide what to do next.  The fact that many things are not individual choices, but are choices that several people have to agree upon as the next step requires a skill that not only centers on the self, but also on the whole.  This is what society is learning right now.

It is painful sometimes, to have to go through the process of hearing out all the views, then composting the unhelpful ideas that are about raising obstacles rather than finding openings.  In the end, some may be quite satisfied with the direction to take in next steps;  others will feel a lingering resistance becuase they cannot break through.  Then, there is a need to constantly be in a mode of review, reinforce that the direction has been set and things need to work in concert in order for the re-set to be healthy and firm again.

It's a lesson that is very challenging to understand.  In deciding life and death questions, this is what families have to do - when to realize that there will be no improvement in conditions and that this is in fact, the long slow walk to the end of a life.  The feeling of readiness is one thing.  But another is the feeling of guilt and resentment bound together as one that has no label.  To watch a slow, certain deminse reminds one of what is happening in our world.  

We have reached the place of knowing there is an end in sight, but the hope that something might be discovered, generosity might lead to sharing that discovery, and life may go on as we once knew it - but is such thinking another obstacle?  Or, is it simply a natural thing to insist that life will go one and things will work out? Maybe this is another aspect of what happens when we "reset.".