"Suspend Disbelief" DK Crawford © 2015, All Rights Reserved

Suspend Belief, if only for a moment

DK Crawford

Today I looked in the garden and almost didn't notice this tiny pink-striped bell-shaped blossom hanging downside-up in midair. This comfrey plant, (given to me by a friend who has since moved to Costa Rica), has served many important healing purposes in our family. Comfrey, known as "the bone knitter" can help heal injuries swiftly. We harvest its prickly leaves, blend or macerate them with water or oil, and make a poultice from them that we wrap around the injury. A friend of mine recently read an article about making poultices in the summer and freezing them so you'll have them all winter -- brilliant idea. 

But today, the comfrey and its frozen diorama invited me to look at things a different way. So what if I'm having a challenge believing in myself, my talent, my ability to heal or love or be more or enough or even survive? Some days suck and believing seems like just way too much! It's an almost impossible task to be able to believe every single day. But what if, by a message sent by a tiny seemingly magically-suspended flower, we consider in our darkest moments not trying to force ourselves to believe but perhaps to just suspend disbelieving? What if on dark days we look to this image and ask that when our hearts and souls don't have the capacity to believe in the best, we merely just ask that we suspend entertaining the worst-of-the-worst thoughts with a "Hmmm?" "Well? or maybe?" 

I felt a sigh of relief when I saw this dangling delicate puffed-up topsy-turvy lantern hanging where it shouldn't and thought "OK! I'll choose to just say maybe for the day"... Kind of like watching a butterfly or bird loft effortlessly on the draft of a breeze, maybe we aren't meant to be flapping and working and achieving all the time. Maybe some days we just keep our thoughts aloft with a "hmmm" and a "maybe"and perhaps that's the very best we can do and really what we're meant to do until we are stronger and more full of conviction. Somehow this simple illustration that morphed into an idea filled with with grace and possibility and just enough happiness to feel at peace.