Gone Fishing #4: Hiding

Posted on by Harlon

HIDING

is a way of staying alive. Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until we are ready to come into the light. Even hiding the truth from ourselves can be a way to come to what we need in our own necessary time. Hiding is one of the brilliant and virtuoso practices of almost every part of the natural world: the protective quiet of an icy northern landscape, the held bud of a future summer rose, the snow bound internal pulse of the hibernating bear. Hiding is underestimated. We are hidden by life in our mother’s womb until we grow and ready ourselves for our first appearance in the lighted world; to appear too early in that world is to find ourselves with the immediate necessity for outside intensive care.

Hiding done properly is the internal faithful promise for a proper future emergence, as embryos, as children or even as emerging adults in retreat from the names that have caught us and imprisoned us, often in ways where we have been too easily seen and too easily named.

We live in a time of the dissected soul, the immediate disclosure; our thoughts, imaginings and longings exposed to the light too much, too early and too often, our best qualities squeezed too soon into a world already awash with too easily articulated ideas that oppress our sense of self and our sense of others. What is real is almost always to begin with, hidden, and does not want to be understood by the part of our mind that mistakenly thinks it knows what is happening. What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.

Hiding is an act of freedom from the misunderstanding of others, especially in the enclosing world of oppressive secret government and private entities, attempting to name us, to anticipate us, to leave us with no place to hide and grow in ways unmanaged by a creeping necessity for absolute naming, absolute tracking and absolute control. Hiding is a bid for independence, from others, from mistaken ideas we have about our selves, from an oppressive and mistaken wish to keep us completely safe, completely ministered to, and therefore completely managed.

Hiding is creative, necessary and beautifully subversive of outside interference and control. Hiding leaves life to itself, to become more of itself. Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into the light of a proper human future.

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HIDING
From CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
2016 © David Whyte:

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WAITING BOAT
PHOTO © David Whyte
River Cong: County Mayo: Ireland.
December 2014

31 thoughts on “Gone Fishing #4: Hiding”

  2. So true and powerful to read, Harlon. I don’t even know if I’d call it hiding, as much as living. Living in solitude at times is utterly necessary for us all, I think, even if just in short stretches. We’ve got to be able to remain connected to what’s left when the lights go out… 🙂

    Peace and Happy Hiding, my friend!
    Michael

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  6. On Self-Knowledge
     Kahlil Gibran

    Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
    But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
    You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
    You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

    And it is well you should.
    The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
    And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
    But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
    And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
    For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

    Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
    Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
    For the soul walks upon all paths.
    The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
    The soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals.

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  9. Ah Harlon – what a great post. Sometimes hiding out is the only way to keep us from becoming “human doings.” WE are bigger than our to-do lists!
    xx,
    mgh
    (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
    ADD/EFD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
    “It takes a village to transform a world!”

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    • The called to my heart as well. I know I have been hiding a lot lately, it was nice to get affirmation on the reasons why…..I am not hiding from, I am hiding for… xo Harlon

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  12. This is a big comfort. Like hiding under a cozy blanket. We need time for hiding because: “Hiding done properly is the internal faithful promise for a proper future emergence…” I love this post, Harlon.

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