Untying Knots

 

We learn the rope of life by untying its knots.

Jean Toomer

I knit..albeit not perfectly...as the tangled up mess in the yarn I am using to knit my grandaughter a sweater shows. I pulled the wrong strand out from the center of the skein and began working with that. When you do that the working strand gets all tangled up with the end strand and boom...you got a mess. I spent three hours yesterday evening trying to untangle these knots so I could go on knitting. I watched myself as I was untangling and was like, "Wow...my life practice is really working." 

I sat there for three hours with a smile on my face, patiently tracing the yarn through one tangled knot to another, very, very slowly and painstakenly unravelling the mess I made.  I wasn't complaining to myself or others. I wasn't thinking or saying, "Oh this shouldn't be. What a waste of time and energy. I'm supposed to be knitting, not untangling." Nope...I just sat there patiently unravelling the mess that was before me as if it was simply a life event I was given to deal with. I was dealing.  

I realised it was my mess, I made it, no one else. I didn't waste time blaming the cat. It wasn't the cats' fault though they like to swat at my yarn. I didn't waste time blaming the quality of the yarn.  It wasn't the yarn's fault. I made the mess...no one or nothing else. I made an unskillful choice and I ended up with the mess, therefore it was my responsibility to clean it up.  At the same time, I didn't blame myself or beat myself up for that little error in judgement. I just learned from it, teling myself I will do better next time.

I did think during it all about a short cut I could take. I could cut the tangle out and rejoin the ends in  a lil knot...but something would not let me do that ( I may at some point do that) but there was something about this untangling that had a lot of symbolic meaning for me . It was like I was untangling my samskaras, the knots within me and cleaning up the mess. It is a slow and painful process getting through one little tangle after the other...but a very necessary one if we want the freedom to create the Life these untangled strands of life energy will give us. If I were to cut...it would almost be like "spiritually bypassing". I reminded myself that the only way out is through. So, I kept on working my way  through the tangles.

Everytime I got through a patch of knots and the yarn loosened significantly, I felt myself getting lighter, happier. It was crazy. I realize now that I actually see myself getting through the samksaras within and that I am releasing them...one knot at a time.

So cool!

All is well!