Finding Humility on Route 66, Part I

Recently, a colleague, (thank you Marta) helped me to formulate a question for my best interest now and in the future: "What is the quality I most need for present circumstances and for proceeding into the future?"

After I got off our call, the answer came swiftly: Humility.  I need humility now and into the future.  My life deepens upon it. I woke up the next day with the remains of a delightful dream, perfect guidance to help me integrate the quality of humility.  It came in the form of humor.  In the dream, a great being, an Archangel acted out the body expression of arrogance- head held high, nose in the air, neck snapped back, hips askew-you get the picture.  The image of an angel taking on the posture of arrogance was very funny to me. Then the great being in my dream shape-shifted again taking on the posture of self-deprecation, with head hanging low, near perpendicular to it's slumped body, heart compressed, bent at that waist, knees buckled together.  I got it, not this posture, no that is not the picture of true humility.   In the dictionary, hu-mil-i-ty, a noun, is defined as: a modest or low view of one's own importance, humbleness.  However, my dream showed me different.  Humility is not having a low view of one's importance, but rather a neutral view, neither high or low.  Humility is not arrogant or self-deprecating, it is neither greedy or impatient.  Humility is not stubborn in the face of change or self-destructive.  Humility is love, self-love, not martyrdom.  Humility is not concerned with feigning or exaggerating one's experience to others, nor is it being in fear.  It is a natural state of equanimity - it is disengaged from being driven by ego.

Route 66

It is fall, a natural time of change. I see hot air balloons in the air today as I look out from my new home three floors above historic Route 66- a constant river of movement along which many have traveled east and west for generations. A big shift from a semi-rural earthy casita in one Albuquerque neighborhood on two acres of garden, flowers, trees to a busy city street. I find myself thinking about this idea of humility and how to find it, tune into it each day in this strange new place. A seeming homeless person was sleeping outside the front door to my complex yesterday, another person asks me for money, another asks to use a phone;  I am more aware of the division between the halves and the have-nots here.  There is a food bank for those in need one block from my new building.  On the weekends, motorcycles cruise up and down the stretch in front of my building until all hours of the night- very different than my former quiet- hood.

Change brings up my insecurities, fears about my safety arise; I feel  emotional upheaval.  I prefer to have stability or the illusion of control over my environment. By day number nine of my immigration from one residence to another I hit a wall of overwhelm, too much stress, little sleep.  I have lost my center, my peaceful center, my humility: my garden of grounding.

Humility and home have a root connection, like Christ said, "blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Though I do not know exactly what that means, I do know that it is not through separation from the others that we inherit the keys to home but rather through acceptance and heart.  A month passes, I use earplugs, I sleep again. I unpack a bit each day and become more accustomed to the new space and the noises from the street that rise up - an endless playlist of jarring urban beats.  I realize the action of folding into fear- judgement and resistance -is always to create more fear, so I am learning to adapt, embrace the new soundtrack to my life and to continue to cultivate acceptance of what is.  With humility.  After all, I am just one of many dwellers in the city on route somewhere, seeking something.