Awakening to Wholeness is a series of prompts, reflections, and teachings about how holding the tension of opposites can help us to heal division and experience wholeness. If you feel moved to share your own reflections, we invite you to email us with the subject line “Wisdom of Opposites” or tag us on social media with #EHoPWisdomOfOpposites.
This post is adapted from Into Your Heart: A Creative Path to Healing and Wholeness, a workbook by EHoP Artist in Residence Julie Ann Stevens.
I am unfolding from a sacred center that holds fast in every dimension of life and death.
To be wild at heart is to live wholeheartedly as we were created —
Untamed, in the sense that our very breath is not ours to control.
It is wild.
Our hearts beat, giving us blood flow and aliveness without us having done a thing to earn it.
And yes,
we are stewards of this life given and rooted in that which we cannot explain.
And yes,
everything is passing.
And yes,
everything is
being
made
New.
To accept that everything is passing and to say “YES!” with your whole heart involves learning to embrace “Both, And.”
This is to open your eyes to the paradox in everything and allow yourself to experience all sides as holy rather than blindly letting the dualistic mind sort everything we encounter into neat little piles of “in” and “out.”
A list of common polarities is started below.
Sit with each pair and notice your thoughts. Breathe deeply and allow space for non-judgment and detachment from emotions. Notice the ways the polarities live together. Call to mind examples of how wholeness includes both and how they can enable each other.
- life/death
- light/dark
- full/empty
- neat/messy
- beginning/ending
- awake/asleep
- fast/slow
- climbing/descending
Contemplative Questions
We offer the following questions as prompts to help you reflect on the presence of opposites in your spiritual practice and your life.
- When do you find yourself sorting things, experiences, even people into neat categories of “good” and “bad,” “in” and “out”? Which qualities in others are easy for you to embrace? Which are more difficult?
- Which qualities in yourself are easy to embrace? Which do you try to suppress or ignore?
- What practices, teachings, or people help you look beyond neat, dualistic categories in order to experience all sides as holy?
Join the conversation! If you feel moved to share your reflections, we invite you to email us with the subject line “Wisdom of Opposites” or tag us on social media with #EHoPWisdomOfOpposites.
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