There’s a mischievous elf that sneaks into my closet at night and ties knots in my necklaces.
Until this week, I was sure that had to be the explanation. My necklaces are carefully put away after each wear. How else could it happen that I take them out in the morning, only to find them tangled into a gnarly little ball?
Knots – whether you find them in your gold chains, extension cords, knitting yarn, or in your own mind in the form of an inscrutable problem – can make you want to tear your hair out in frustration.
Physical or metaphorical, they seem to make themselves. The untangling feels like a waste of time that could have, SHOULD have been avoided somehow!
But what if our knots should be there? What if the tangling and untangling is part of the point?
A few days ago I was listening to a talk by poet David Whyte. He recounted how he’d be working in his garden and find himself frustrated. The water hose would inevitably tie itself in knots, knocking over pots, trampling his seedlings, and generally making a mess.
Then one day, watching the hose folding over itself on its way into a knot, he had a flash of insight.
The very building blocks of our bodies are proteins that fold over themselves in the chemical dance of our metabolisms. They endlessly make knots of themselves and with each other. The result is nothing less than life itself.
In other words: entanglement is fundamental to the world we live in. Where there’s life, there are knots.
The hose in its knottiness was just as it should be. In an instant, the poet’s frustration dissolved. The knot became another part of the garden of growing things.
Where there are knots, there’s life.
When a knot stops being a problem, it can start being part of the fun. Even my snarled necklaces turn into pleasant little puzzles if I let myself sit down, relax, and take time to enjoy the untangling.
You’ll probably meet a knot today in one form or another. Who, how, do you become to untangle it – and to do so in peace?
Start by remembering it’s part of the garden. And maybe it’s even part of the fun.
Love,
Kate
PS – Need a song to remind you to enjoy the untangling of your knot du jour?
Check out the latest single from Rowan Sway! You can listen to “Space Between My Hands” on Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, Amazon, and all your other favorite listening platforms. And if you know anyone who might enjoy this song, I’d be honored if you’d share it with them