Curiosity
By Lezli Censullo
Curiosity. What is it? For me, curiosity is often the antidote to fear. Curiosity is what reminds me that I only know what I know for as long as I don’t know anything else. Curiosity is what reminds me that what I think I know likely isn’t the whole story, and it makes me wonder how I might tell that story differently. Curiosity is the inner guide who is unfettered by the need to be right and who can hold seeming contradictions in the palm of her hand and invite them to have a conversation. It is curiosity that powers my wings and invites me to explore, to wonder and to be totally awed by what I find.
Gemini season is the time to follow our curiosity, to forge ahead with questions, to be delighted with ideas and tidbits of information, to follow rabbit holes just for the pleasure of seeing where they take us.
Aging is a very curious process indeed. I’m very curious about all of it. I’m curious about why our skin gets baggy. Is it to make it easier for our souls to escape the container of our bodies when the time comes? I’m curious about why our hair loses its ability to hold pigment and turns grey or white. Is it to provide a blank pallet for our crown chakra to receive new information? I’m curious about why our eyesight declines as we grow older. Is it so we can be less distracted by the outer world and begin to look within more deeply? I’m curious about why some people become more open to ideas as they grow older and others become more closed and fixed in their views. Is this actually a response to the same kind of fears, managed very differently?
I’m curious about why some of us experience so much pain and loss and difficulty in life and why others must bear witness. I’m curious about what we learn from misfortune and hard times. I’m curious about the whole process of evolution and how some people seem to thrive no matter what and others sink into addiction and depression. I’m curious about why some people become mentally ill and suffer from debilitating chemical imbalances that shape their realities in so many difficult ways. Is it because there are so many realties happening at the same time on so many levels that we are only seeing various and perhaps unconnected parts of a much bigger story?
I’m curious about how life began and how it ends, if it ends at all. I’m curious about the human condition and what it means to be truly and fully human. I’m curious about where I go when I meditate and when I journey. I’m curious about why some people don’t seem to be curious at all. Is it perhaps because they are pausing to learn something very specific that I’m not privy to?
When I was about 9 years old I came home from school one day wondering about how some people could seem so sure about religion, that their religion was right and all others were wrong. Today I wonder how the human culture can be so divided about so many things. I still wonder about multiple realities, religious fundamentalism, how we got born in the first place and why we die.
I don’t expect to find answers. I am grateful beyond measure that I thrive on the questions. What do you wonder about? I really want to know.
