I just finished Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest memoir, All the Way to the River, and a few lines jumped out at me. In one art piece (because the memoir includes her doodles), she writes, “Replacing fantasies with different fantasies is not a good idea. Trade fantasy, which has a storyline, with mystery, which does not.”
As we open this new year, that feels like the best possible advice I could hear. So much of 2025 was a dismantling of fantasies and storylines for me. It was understanding that happily ever after doesn’t exist, and instead, life is a wheel. It was also a lesson in realizing that plans will always go awry, and it’s better for me to plan for that, or in other words, to welcome the trickster.
I want to be omniscient. I want to know everything right now, but as my former therapist used to say, “How’s that working out for you?” My friend, it is not working out for me. Not even a little. Trading one fantasy for another, one plan for another, only sets me up for disappointment. Honestly, I’m a little tired of disappointment. I’d like to get off this ride, please.
Abstract art! Always mysterious! Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash
And even though my spiritual practice advocates recognizing our true nature, i.e., that we are all divine, or spiritual beings having a human experience, my teacher does NOT say we should try to know everything. In fact, he says, Cosmic Consciousness has been “creating this unique, colorful world with His various powers. Why He is doing so is known to Him alone; no one else knows it. … It is a fact that human beings with their limited intellect can never understand the secrets of why and how [God] has been creating this universe; their wisdom can never fathom this mystery.”
Instead of trying to puzzle everything out, my teacher says, “You should think, ‘My little intellect cannot fathom all this – rather let me do one thing, let me establish a relation of sweet love with Him,’” because ultimately, that’s the only thing that brings relief anyway.
In Liz’s poem “God Responds to My Withdrawal,” she touches on this, writing from the perspective of God. Here are a few excerpts:
Nothing you could ever feel
is bigger than what I can hold.
Let me surround you with holy silence, then
while you struggle.
Let me embrace you with my infinite mystery
while you rage.
….
Being everywhere, I have nowhere better to be.
Being everything, I have nothing better to do.
Bring it all to me, then.
….
Feel everything you need to feel, my child–
but feel me, too, in this unrelenting furnace.
Feel me, too.
As people, places, and things continue to baffle me, the best I can do is keep developing a loving relationship with myself and with my Higher Power. And instead of replacing one storyline with another, I’m better served by living in the mystery.
I dream of a world where we recognize our plans will always go awry. A world where we stop trying to shoehorn life into a particular storyline. A world where we turn inward for comfort and relief. A world where instead of trying to be omniscient, we make peace with living in the mystery.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I had an interesting experience on Friday. I walked by the yoga studio where I used to host a weekly group meditation prior to the pandemic. I discovered the building is no longer safe to enter and has been stripped to its studs! I don’t know if they’re renovating the building or tearing it down, but regardless, I likely won’t be in that yoga studio again because someone in my community has an office space we’ll be able to use for free when meeting in person resumes.
I mention all this because passing by the yoga studio had me reflect on what it now turns out is the very last time I was in that space. It was March 2020 and I waffled about whether to host a group meditation that night. The pandemic was just getting started and we thought Covid was spread via touch. I wasn’t sure whether to proceed or not because I didn’t want anyone to catch the virus, and at the same time I felt a nudge to host.
In the end, I said, “Let’s do it” and brought alcohol swabs to wipe down every surface. No one attended the group meditation and instead of shrugging my shoulders and leaving, I decided to go through with the routine anyway. I meditated with myself and whatever ethereal spirits were in attendance, and walked home, still unsure if I had made a good decision.
As if in answer to that question, when I rounded the corner from the yoga studio, I spotted the rainbow pictured below.
I’m so glad I recorded this moment.
Even at the time, I laughed and texted my family, telling them I was glad I went, that it felt like the universe affirmed my decision. Now I’m doubly glad because that day in March 2020 was my chance to say goodbye to a space I’d used weekly for years, a space where I met new people, strengthened existing bonds, and supported spiritual development.
My experience from Friday reminds me that love knows. The cosmic intelligence that’s at play in the universe knows everything, knows what I need and want before I need or want it. Love knew I wouldn’t be at that yoga studio again and needed a proper goodbye. Nor is this experience with the yoga studio an isolated incident. This has happened to me before in myriad ways – not only with saying goodbye, but also calling someone just as they needed it, or opening a book to the exact page that provided solace I sought, etc. Love knows and love always knows.
My spiritual teacher says, “The Macro-psychic Entity is omniscient … There is no special endeavor, and no necessity for special effort, to know anything, because all things are within Him and all are within His ectoplasmic dispersion …. Everything is His internal mental projection, intra-psychic projection. That is why He knows everything and will always know everything.”
The Divine Beloved knows everything and will always know everything. There’s relief in that and also a sweetness. I don’t have to know everything; I don’t have to figure everything out because there’s an entity that already does all that. And that entity is guiding me, letting me know for instance when I should visit a yoga studio for an unbeknownst-to-me goodbye.
I dream of a world where we recognize there’s a divine intelligence at play in the universe that knows everything. A world where we understand that omniscient entity guides us, loves us, and shows us our next steps. A world where we realize love knows and always will.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.