Revelations arise through many avenues. Sometimes they come quietly when we are on our own, until bam! The power for potential change is revealed. Sometimes it is our friends who point out an obvious quality in ourselves we fail to recognize on our own. Or maybe we know this quality but we simply do not give it much thought, because we simply are who we are.

I credit a friend to the recent consideration of my “black and white” point of view. Is it too extreme? Am I missing out on other possibilities in life because choices, positions and decisions seem so clearly “to be” or “not to be”? And it’s not that I align myself with anyone else’s sense of black and white, right or wrong. I simply have my own point of view.

I know this practice and way of seeing the world serves professional accomplishments. But what is the outcome for our personal lives when we are living within the mushiness of another’s sense of the world, timing and spirit ? The either/or view of the world seems ultimately Limiting when living in relation to another. Even when looking from the outside with respect to social conventions of what’s acceptable behavior, the over simplification of choice , when taken to the extreme “good” or “bad” seems never rich enough for life’s unfolding expression. Perhaps the black and white of choice is a matter of survival when we find ourselves on a tricky path.

The last month or so I have been challenging my decision process , stretching choice between black and white to feel what living in the gray is like. Gray is certainly a more muddy, less clear sense of reality than I normally choose. Gray gives us longer to consider choices. Living the gray broadens the sense of understanding in the world. And it can reassign the poles of black and white with other truths. Living the gray is messy, more inclusive, less simple. Living the gray is like singing a note and holding it as long as possible to feel what that note can become as it is sung.

Living the gray is living in a world where past limits fall away to new truths. Where the separation between earth, water, and air vanishes.