I sat in the jungle with Tulsi, face to face, even though we’ve never met. The light was low and beaming through her leaves, a rare positioning of the sun in a jungle. We must have been up on a mountain or the light may have been coming from another source. The underside of the canopy above was illuminated and I inhaled over my mug. My nose touched the warm water. I felt full in my head, knowing that this ceremony would likely break through me. I took my first sip and tears began to flow down my cheeks, water sealing my eyelashes. I felt the Tulsi flow down my throat and shelter my heart.
I asked how I could work with her, how I could be with her guidance and wisdom. The Question—such a human way in! I asked if I could enter her temple, and as I spoke the words, her vines began to wrap around me. We became one. I felt safe— I was being hugged by someone I knew but had never met. Something that was a part of me. Maybe my Grandmother’s Grandmother. Maybe more ancient. I again asked how to be with her and she filled my body with the knowing. “I’ve always been with you, learn to make time for me.” There was no pressure, no judgement as to whether or when I would return to her again. More tears flowed from me. How can such a patience exist? She told that if I wanted to understand what patience meant, I needed to learn from the plants. “We drop our seeds. We wait for the rain. We push through the soil, reaching towards sun. We wait for the leaves to bury us. The energy, the power, comes to us.” Seeking & waiting, I wondered how the two cohabitate. She doesn’t have her own clock or her own agenda. There is only one Mother Time that maintains the rhythm. It does not belong to any one thing, only to the unfolding of each emerging Now. Lack of patience is a way of saying “things happen on my plan, on my time.” Patience is an act of surrender. If you want to learn patience, release all that you think is yours.