“To have and to hold,” alliterate the wedding vows. There is perhaps no more beautiful word than the verb hold. Movies show lovers swept into each other’s arms and holding a warm embrace. Cute mommy-baby pictures show the infant nestled in arms and holding the gaze of the nurturing mother. We hold loved ones in our hearts and tunes in our voices. The leaf holds the dew and the dune a million grains of sand, the water a constellation of sunbeams. Sparkly, delicate or windswept and rugged as a mountain peak layered in snow, we enjoy the beauty of holding.
I feel alive just seeing the act of holding. There is energy and vibrancy, tenderness, warmth, and delight.
Holding is a form of stopping time and appreciating the timelessness. Holding is transformational since it brings one thing together with another and makes a new union from them. Sometimes when I’m feeling rushed or cranky I wonder if I’ve had enough holding in my life recently.
Holding is literal, physical and also metaphysical, spiritual and psychological. To hold is to expand the aesthetic of life.
Forming and holding an intention is an act of beauty. Almost magically I constellate my own new North Star. It blinks and sings. I am alive with the tension and intention of holding something with potential; something subjectively or universally lovely.
Intentions should not be like laundry lists scribbled on the backs of envelopes and scarred by the excuses that prevented their budding and fruition. Rather, they should be held as holy icons, formed and amplified; sacred embryos secured and ever growing in the womb. Holding my intentions, I look them over and love them for how they got here and where they will take me.
To be sure there can be some ugly, tragic or malevolent holdings as well: anger, resentment, grudges, victimhood. In those instances, the beauty lies in seeing imperfections without trying to enfold them further.
In these cases, I am looking for ways to let go or at least adjust the hold. Sometimes the holding is just enough to allow a new way of looking.
“To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at,” said Claude Monet, the French impressionist painter. Rather than naming, I will appreciate doing, seeing, being.
Holding can also take the form of a disquietening feeling; not necessarily dramatic pain, just uneasy or unsettled. Some place where indecision still teeters.
“Know when to hold them, and when to fold them,” the song goes. So holding is also about differentiating and making decisions. I want my decision-making to be efficient and painless. Yet often I don’t know what I truly want to hold and what or when I want to fold.
Yet this place of quivering, where the holding breaks open, is a beautiful place too. The leaf holds the dewdrop until it is too heavy. Then it lets go. I trust the gravity of the universe will cause me to let go at the tipping point.
I press out my chest with expanding joy. I blink my eyes at the fresh images ever arising before me. I hold in my awareness my intention to simply contain all that is good for as long as possible and then like the silver droplets to let go and allow the pieces to make a splash.
Holding is a verb. Healing is a verb. Expanding and growing are verbs. Living the verbs is the only way to live.
How many ways are there to hold?
