Bow To What Is

At the center of the labyrinth, as the chimes rang 4 o’clock, I allowed the energy of that space to wash over me. The cold wind was whipping the leaves across the path and I shivered. My coat was pulled tight and my gloved hands reached up to the sky to take in the fading rays of light.
After making a complete circle, pausing at each of the directions, I faced the building once again and bowed. In my mind was the awareness that I was bowing to “What Is,” allowing myself to have an acceptance of that which exists. For the moment I was serene with that acceptance, allowing my chest to expand and to breathe in the essence of that acceptance. Despite the chill air, I felt a warmth spread through my chest.
Later, with my mind engaged again, I began to question the concept, as I am wont to do. What does it mean to bow to what is? Deep in my being a voice cries out for something better, different. In order to bow to what is do I need to silence that voice? How can I bow to what is, accept less than what could be, less than perfect? For me to be able to live in this world, there needs to be some possibility that life can be better than what it has been until now.
Who am I to say that something has to be different, that change must occur? What power do I hold? Yet, I do hold the power of my own life in my hands. So, how do I choose to bow to what is, to accept that which has gone before and not give in to despair?
Few of the details of my life are as I would have chosen had I been given a choice. Yet, they exist, as do I. They are done and cannot be changed, yet by bowing to those experiences or situations am I saying that I accept what they represent? I have been told that the past does not equal the future, and while that may be true, it does indeed influence the future.
The realization that bowing to what is creates a way to let go of the anger or upset about circumstances is helpful. It still provides me with questions about the purpose of letting go of those feelings. For example, if something negative happened like the death of a child, how does letting go of the feelings of anger or sadness really help? The life circumstance cannot be changed yet do the feelings not serve a purpose? If that child was killed in street violence, for example, do not the anger and outrage actually serve a purpose—to work to change the situation that created it?
If human beings all bow to what is there might be a lessening of violence because acts of revenge for past hurts would not happen. On the other hand, what about social justice, rights of the oppressed, etc.? No one would spend time working for those causes because they had chosen to bow to what is, to let go of the negative emotions attached to the situations.
In standing in that scalloped circle at the center of the labyrinth, bowing to what is, was I being true to myself? Did that one act of momentary acceptance create a different neural pathway in my brain, did it allow me to view the world and my life differently? My immediate response would be no, yet something did shift, if only momentarily. I stood listening to the dry, brown leaves blow in the wind and realized that in a sense we all blow in the winds of life. Just a moment of change, but there were possibilities in that moment.