The uncertainty factor explains so much about these times we are living through. Those of us who have made our lives into a quest for freedom realized long ago that relocating our lives in uncertainty was a requirement. Any time we slipped back into knowing we felt a swift kick in the ass saying, “Hey, that’s dead ground. Pay attention to here, to now. Be alive Clive!”

Uncertainty anchors you in the present moment and it can be terrifying to someone unfamiliar with its simple grace and utter freedom. Not knowing is a marker for the here-now, a diamond of possibility and potential. It is the Reality, not simply a prospect, that anything at all might happen. To relocate here-now all bets must be off.

And that’s the rub.

Many have spent entire lives trying to round up the ducks, to get them to waddle in rows of our making. Some have even appeared to find a measure of success, that is when you measure success in terms of dollars and cents rather than the heart and soul. To someone who is invested in the appearance, the idea of no control, another word for uncertainty, is more than terrifying. It can foretell the undoing of one’s entire identity.

Identity is a crafty bedfellow. It pulls back the soft, warm bedcovers cloaked in infinite disguises, and expertly convinces you that your version is right, is worthy, isn’t in the way at all, even when you are consciously on the path of awakening. It is truly a grand trickster.

Spiritual identity can be tenacious. It comes wrapped in terms like discernment and truth, reality and knowing, often beginning with a capital letter. I can’t do that, accept that, trust that because it isn’t Truth — and I know. That’s not good. It’s evil. And so it goes.

Judging in the name of discernment, using spiritual-eze to maintain the sense of self, nothing changes except the belief system, one exchanged for another. The door to uncertainty, which is not a door at all, swings closed with the momentum and singlemindedness of the new identity. Asleep, curled up in a new spiritual name, the game goes on.

I wonder … is it harder for those with more rigid beliefs, those who are called the alt-right, to see through the hell they create or is it more difficult for those who have walked a ways down the path of opening only to be caught in a new dream?

God knows I went in search of certainty when I set upon the yellow brick road. I wanted to know God. I wanted to awaken to my divinity and to know it was real, that it wasn’t just my mind making it up, another untruth masquerading as truth. I wanted it all, the truth wrapped up with a golden bow. Had someone come along and said, “Here It Is!” would I have listened? Would I have given myself over?

I think the answer would have been yes at various times along the path, although not for long and not completely all-in. I was designed with a healthy skepticism of anyone who claimed to have it, let alone be it. My all-in slide was reserved for realationship with God and by grace, I was one demanding doubting Thomas.

But how would I really know? I didn’t faced the uncertainty of these times then. I didn’t have to look a pandemic in the eye and know that my life may be forfeit in any moment. I hadn’t been programmed for many years by fear. Can you imagine being subtly, unconsciously programmed to fear half of the world when you are as open to suggestion as people are early upon the spiritual path?

I’m not really surprised at the number of people, both left and right who are unable to live in uncertainty, in that outrageously unknown territory. It feels safer to deny and decry the facts of life. No wonder there are so many stories floating around, grabbing hold of those suspended in unreality and unwilling to even hover near the ground of what actually is.

The BIG ask has always been the same — Be Present. Nothing else is real at all. Any time we slip out of uncertainty into our knowing mind we are truly no different than our fellow travelers caught in the stories of their minds.

These times are not substantially different. They do however exponentially amplify the question and lay out the consequences of not listening in an undeniable fashion. For that we can shudder and cry, scream and run or be utterly, absolutely, unconditionally grateful.

“Comfort is overrated; uncertainty is most certainly your best friend. Comfort merely means that in this moment you aren’t being challenged by the fires of transformation. Could be you’re having a universal time-out or perhaps you are hiding, sticking your head in the sand while the mysterious chaos swirls all around you. Are you tamping down life’s infinite possibilities, mindlessly striving to limit the limitless? A liberated mind finds infinity notably auspicious, full to the brim with possibility. Rather than cringing in apprehension, stop now and surrender.” Card #10 Sacred Riddle, The Wild Child