To Believe
What is it to believe?
It is not the same as to hope.
Hope smoulders on possibility and an air of optimism.
To believe is to be in relationship with trust. Trust grows from a centre. Trust is earth.
Hope is ether; ethereal.
Trust is peaceful. Hope is joyful.
Can I trust that I am here inside of this flesh right now?
What do I trust about this flesh; this body of earth and the life it contains?
This is the beginning of connecting with what feels true enough to believe, in the moment I pause to consider what feels true for me at this point in my journey. Once I’m able to sense this, I can begin to extend my sense of trust to the life around me. To interact with life in a trusting way so that I might touch things that are true outside of my individual experience. I trust that the truth will be revealed, either way.
Trust is beyond intellect.
It is a feeling, rather than a knowing - that the vast darkness, the unfathomable space and spaces between, hold us. Big burning spheres of gas appear to us as tiny stars on a black canvas.
Is our inclination to look up in moments of awe, wonder, prayer and solace-seeking, an ode to our propensity to believe in something beyond comprehension? In looking up, do we seek reprieve from what we see in the street; the psyche extending into some kind of visible space within which to co-metabolise burdensome thoughts?
When we meet with ourselves in star gazing more often, perhaps it is our way of flirting with belief. And whether or not the art of looking presents a porthole to seeing something to believe in, can the feeling of my feet standing firmly on one of earth’s surfaces, serve as a seed of trust, planted.