Lately I have found myself questioning things.
Maybe it comes from a desire for harmony. Maybe it comes from years of following certain teachings and seeing where they led. Maybe it comes from reaching a point where something within me simply says, “There is more to this.”
I am not entirely sure where the questioning began.
What I do know is that over time I started paying closer attention to what I was feeling.
Not my opinions.
Not what someone else told me was true.
What I was actually experiencing.
There have been many moments in my life when an inner knowing spoke quietly before anything happened. A subtle nudge. A feeling. An awareness that something was not quite aligned.
Sometimes I listened.
Sometimes I didn’t.
Sometimes I wanted something badly enough that I walked right past what I knew.
Love.
Opportunity.
Belonging.
The promise of something I hoped would work out.
And later I would understand why that inner voice spoke in the first place.
What fascinates me is that we are rarely given proof in those moments.
Knowing often arrives without evidence.
It asks something of us before we can see the outcome.
The proof tends to arrive later.
After the experience.
After the lesson.
After we have already walked the path.
Over the last several months these questions have expanded beyond my own choices and into many of the spiritual teachings I hear repeated over and over.
Just be.
Everything is within you.
If it hasn’t arrived yet, there must be a block.
Keep clearing and eventually you will receive.
At one point I accepted many of these statements without much examination.
Today I find myself asking different questions.
What does “just be” actually mean?
How do we work with that when our nervous system is activated and our emotions are moving through us?
What does it mean to say something is supporting us?
And perhaps the biggest question of all:
What is our role in the relationship?
I notice this often in spiritual circles.
We are told a planet is supporting us.
An oracle card is guiding us.
The Full Moon is illuminating something.
The Earth is holding us.
Spirit is opening a door.
All of these may be true.
But somewhere along the way I realized there was a missing piece.
How do I partner with it?
If Jupiter is highlighting an area of growth, what does relationship with that energy look like?
If a new moon is inviting new beginnings, how do I consciously participate?
If the Earth is supporting me, how do I meet the Earth as a living relationship rather than simply a resource?
These questions changed something for me.
Because without relationship, spirituality can become surprisingly passive.
We wait.
We hope.
We receive information.
We collect wisdom.
We gather teachings.
We gather books.
We gather classes.
We gather perspectives.
And yet gathering is only one part of the cycle.
There is also planting.
There is tending.
There is participating.
There is harvesting.
There is relationship.
The Andean teachings that have deeply resonated with me are rooted in relationship.
Relationship with the Earth.
Relationship with the mountains.
Relationship with the unseen.
Relationship with ourselves.
Not as concepts.
Not as beliefs.
As living experiences.
When we meet a new person, relationship develops over time.
There are conversations.
Shared experiences.
Trust.
Discovery.
We learn how that person communicates.
We learn their nature.
The relationship deepens because we invest in it.
Why would it be any different with the Earth?
Or intuition?
Or Spirit?
Or the unseen world?
We often hear the advice to go sit with a tree, spend time in nature, or ground into the Earth.
There is wisdom in that.
Yet I wonder if there is an even deeper invitation.
What if we approached the Earth the way we approach a new friendship?
What if we became curious?
What if we listened?
What if we returned again and again?
What if we allowed a relationship to form?
Something changes when we move from consuming wisdom to relating with it.
Something changes when we stop asking, “What is this doing for me?” and begin asking, “How am I participating with this?”
Perhaps this is where discernment lives.
Not in doubting everything.
Not in rejecting teachings.
But in bringing ourselves into the conversation.
Feeling into what resonates.
Testing wisdom through experience.
Discovering what is true within our own relationship to life.
These days I find myself questioning more than I once did.
Not because I trust less.
Because I want to participate more fully.
And perhaps that is the invitation I leave you with.
When something is said to be supporting you, guiding you, or walking beside you, pause for a moment.
Ask yourself:
What does relationship look like here?
And what is my part in it?
I wish you much love and many blessings,
Susan