The Belly of the Whale

The Belly of the Whale: the place Jonah was stranded when he denied his calling. Most of our stories (and I mean our life stories) seems to include a belly-of-the-whale experience, or a number of them. These are the dry stretches. They are the places where we feel stuck and nothing seems to happen. For Odysseus, it was the seven years he spent on Calypso's Island. What was happening there? We don't know. The story teller didn't choose to fill in the blanks. I have a theory and it applies to not just the myths and legends. It applies to all of us.

I think that those stuck places are actually fertile ground. They represent the times in our lives when we are gestating our labors and gaining wisdom. The problem is, they don't make for an interesting story, so we are in a hurry to get through them and want to skip over the 75 pages where nothing seemed to happen to get to the interesting part of the story.

I write of this because I am in one of those belly-of-the-whale interludes in my own life and am feeling ready for the whale to cough me back up so I can get on with things! I gave up my career last year and a few months later I sold my home. Months later, my new work is still taking form and there is no new home in sight. My storage unit (holding all my worldly goods) is a symbol of my life right now: on hold and awaiting a new destination. It isn't surprising that I am anxious to build some new clarity and direction, but I'd like to do this with more grace and willingness and less of this restless push to get on with things.

If this really is a fertile period, a time of gestation, I do not want to rush things. I want to savor the quiet and pay attention to the small changes at work, within and without. I want to be wise and listen well. This inner work requires trust. It requires faith. Some days, it feels like these are in short supply and my impatience dominates. One day, I believe the whale will cough me up on a new shore, or like Odysseus, I'll get off the island and find my way home to Ithaca. For now, my job is to trust the process and be present in this moment, rather than longing for a different one. If you are willing, come sit with me awhile and contemplate the perfection of this moment, and perhaps we can help each other to remember that it really is enough.