What is one to do when you don’t know what to do? How do we choose how and where to put the next foot right when the way forward is unclear?
When I write, I usually know where to go. But this time, there’s a topic lurking just under the surface. So I canoodle around on the keyboard and hope it will decide to join me. Like so many of my writer friends, our current state of affairs has taken creative skills on something resembling Mr. Toad’s wild ride. Sometimes we focus and the words come spilling out. Sometimes they even come out in the right order. Life’s uncertainty can create space for good things to happen as easily as it can drain us of purpose and focus — except when it doesn’t.
I canoodle around on the keyboard and hope it decides to join me. Click To Tweet
I don’t know what else to do with an unruly topic: it won’t go away and leave me alone but it remains elusive, flat out refusing to become clear. In a way, it reminds me of a pan of water on the stove, just before 
it starts to boil. There’s a bubble here, and another one over there. And, while their activity level looks a bit leisurely, those bubbles are part of a much bigger picture. They are part of building energy, an energy that will not only heat water but will change part of it from liquid to gas. Steam.
And a change in form is a type of magic, is it not? The stage magician enlists our willingness to be fooled as the ‘nothing’ behind an ear suddenly produces coins. We don’t know how it happens. Alchemy. Magic. A change in form. While it looks simple, it’s a really big, complex change. Just like boiling water.
When you stop and think about it, there’s a lot of alchemic activity swirling around us. The first one that comes to mind is that thing with breath: humans using oxygen which changes to carbon dioxide for trees that then return it to us in its original, usable form. Our airy waste feeds the trees while theirs becomes the source of life for so many air-breathing beings wandering the planet. It’s another matter-changing bit of magic.
There’s a lot of alchemic activity swirling around us. Click To TweetNature provides other examples: snow melts, ponds freeze, and at certain times of year something’s probably hatching almost anywhere we choose to look.
Of course the most familiar example of form-changing experiences is the transition from caterpillar to moth or butterfly. And while it’s a metaphor that’s been done to death there’s a good reason: it’s an example that give us solid toeholds for learning.
Think about it… you’re this little wormy bug thing, wandering around, munching on plants. Some of your friends and neighbors get picked off by weather or birds or well-intended gardeners who don’t know any better. But you’re still there… moving from plant to plant, having your fill. Did you know some species of caterpillar eat as much as 27,000 times their body weight during this part of the life cycle? But, as often happens, I digress.
Somehow, those little critters enter the dark place, are turned into a type of goo and are born again — this time in a more beautiful form. And in this new form, the creature feeds on completely different parts of the plant than it did in it’s last life. Sometimes when I watch the butterflies visiting various garden plants I wonder if they remember the food preferences their caterpillar-selves enjoyed? What carries forward from their previous life? What falls by the wayside?
They have nothing to say (and little to do) about this. Caterpillars that survive long enough to face metamorphosis become moths. Or butterflies. Puddles freeze and dandelions go to seed. Water on a hot burner will boil. Perhaps they don’t know it’s coming. It’s just what happens. They don’t struggle with acceptance.
They don’t need to have faith and I doubt they fear the unknown. Click To Tweet
So what do you do when you don’t know what to do? Hopefully, not much. I plan to try to learn to do less. To stand in place and take the next obviously correct action. Like caterpillars, dandelions, and hot water — the change is gonna come. No amount of hand-wringing or pot-stirring is going to make that any different. And the quicker we accept that fact, the happier we’re all going to be.
I love to edit. While some people approach editing with a sense of duty and dread, I bring a 
Sorry, y’all — I can’t get past the thought of preparing and making ready a couple of large loads of laundry. (Next on today’s agenda.) Nonetheless, laundry can sometimes be a good example.
This one also reminds me that not all edits are voluntary or welcome. The death of a loved one. The loss of a job. An unresolvable disagreement with a family member or friend. Emergency surgery. These may not be edits that any of us would choose but we need to find ways to get through them. They are the sorts of changes that put me in mind of the current global pandemic and the wide variety of responses to it. What are the messages it is bringing to us? What will it take to clarify them? How do we embrace the process of finding out?
As I continued to think about the topic, I realized that animals get bored, too. Our dogs, ranging in age from a baby to a senior citizen, love to go to training. They love the five hour round trip. Nobody (except the human) gets to stay in for the entire class, but each dog gets enough mental stimulation to make for a very quiet, sleepy ride home.
Oddly enough, I started working on this post before