What I learned

I have been seeing one small piece of the landscape, a branch of a forest.

Believing it.

Then —

The forest revealed.

And I feel I have been so inept.

It is a reminder of the cost of thinking my knowing is anything.

I am learning that learning is the healing.

Not backtracking, not re-hashing, not splitting words and attempting to save face, not apologizing.

The only currency here is movement.

Learning is moving to a scope from which there is no return to past limited vistas.

No going back to not seeing, no hiding in old ways of non-sensing.

It is a one-way valve.

That changes everything.

It changes me.

I am learning to see the outlines of my own misplaced knowings.

I have learned to watch for signs of Cocky with the stance of clarity —

The self that thinks — I already knew —

is a version that cannot offer safety.

When that version of the self shows up, I will recognize her now.

I learned that learning is a relief. Like oxygen rushing to limbs that were in bondage.

The things I wasn’t perceiving were hurting people, life.