Ingredient 12 - Secrets

Secrets.  We tell them, we keep them, we seek them, we ignore them, we let them down. 

We all have our own secrets that we entrust to no one (unless you are lucky enough to have someone in your life like my husband; in which case, you have a partner you can trust with your deepest and darkest, as well as your most sacred bits of information without fear of judgement).  In fact, most people keep their own secrets far better protected than those that are put in their care by others.  This is usually due to the Shame Factor.  If we are being honest (and why be anything else unless providing testimony about reaching double digits in the number of times you have shit yourself), we don't keep glowing and boastful information about ourselves under cover; Huh uh. We keep only that which we feel will taint the outside world's opinion(s) about us secured in the deepest recesses of our inner most vault system.  The Shame Factor: that by which we keep perhaps the most characterizing aspects of ourselves hidden.

Secrets are funny and fickle things - the definition of which are fully compounded by perspective...and intention, and perspective is everything in this world of tantalizing distractions and concrete shadows.  The bottom line: What you see is not necessarily what you get, but HOW you see it is exactly what you get.  For this reason, there are no real rules or guidelines in determining the anatomy of a secret.  We covet what we will, and we release the rest.  That which seems of monumental composition to one, may be of trivial - or even meaningless - regard to another; which is precisely why so many shared "secrets" are kept with all the stealth possessed of a communicable disease. 

As humans, we much prefer to witness an animated reaction far more than we want to keep the still and quiet honor that comes with recognizing the importance of the "something" - the "anything" - that another has entrusted us to hold...and seal...with loyal pursuit. 

                                                                     *     *     *     *    *

There is another kind of secret.  It is not delivered by either the trusting or the deceptive whispers of humanity; and, when I wrote "the List" a decade ago, it is mostly this other kind of delicate keeping I had in mind as the word "secrets" revealed itself...

Existential Secrets.  What are they?  From where do they come?  And should we really be so surprised that so few of us know many - if any - when we can't even restrain ourselves from revealing to one friend what another friend said about the first friend's mama? 

Existential Secrets.  These are not the kind of secrets that the value of which is interpreted by perspective.  These are the kind of secrets that define value and perspective.  They define compassion, and elusive truths, and prejudice untruths, and justifiable causation.

The debate, for some, rages on in regard to the existence of a god (or gods) versus the visibly founded nature of science.  But, there are those who know better than to engage in such a debate, because there are those that understand the most pertinent Secret of all: the secrets of existence are meant to be shared, but there is a timeline that must be adhered to, for a secret told before its time is but a meaningless whisper that will not escape the recipient unscathed and unaltered.  Also, God is a scientist.  This statement, however, differs in substance, because it is not a secret.  All one has to do is take a good look around to know that science is an underlying and overlapping element of physical and spiritual existence.  Exhibit one: the Universe, itself.  But, I digress (in a most progressive manner).

I don't usually end my posts with this kind of "self-help, help-yourself" kind of plight, but it is my hope that readers of this blog will walk away, after reading this post, with a longing to share more of themselves without shame; to willingly carry the weight and worth of a bequeathed trust, rather than trading it so freely for the lofty and short-lived superficial nature of gossip and ill-sought reaction; and finally, I hope that we will individually and collectively become more deserving of the bigger secrets that are waiting patiently along our ever-evolving spiritual timeline...waiting for us to understand that we, ourselves, are divinely precious secrets to be illuminated like stars in a constellation of our own design.