Being vs. Doing: Lessons from a Summer Moon

Never could I have imagined that the moon had a lesson for me that day about being vs. doing.

And little did we know what was waiting for us as we got in the car and started our journey home.

You see, it had been a long day of doing.

In fact, on the scales of being vs. doing, that day was weighted heavily on the doing side. Not that it was a bad day, but by the end of it we were tired.

It didn’t help that we were starting late for home. As beautiful as the road ahead was, we didn’t relish driving into the oncoming darkness.

But then, about halfway home, something quite magical happened.

Peaking out just above the hills was June’s full moon. At least, I thought it was the moon. I caught a tiny glimpse of it but wasn’t quite sure.

Dave was driving, and I didn’t want to say anything to him at first. I knew that if the moon I thought I saw was really there, it would be spectacular when it fully revealed itself.

So I didn’t want him to be disappointed in case it turned out not to be the moon. Because I’m pretty near-sighted. Of course, I was wearing my glasses but still, I’m sometimes suspicious of the things I catch out of the corner of my eye until I get a better look. 

But more than that, my heart’s excitement at just that tiny glimpse was palpable.

A sliver of moon arcing ever so slightly above the curve of the straw colored hills. The sun’s rays lengthening and moving to shadow as this enchanting moon asserted itself.

Well, it was the moon alright. The full Strawberry Moon.

It was everything I had anticipated it would be in those early moments. So hugely round, a circle silhouetted against the slowly darkening sky. 

Driving toward it, Dave proclaimed that it seemed like we were in a national park, some special place set aside because of its take-your-breath-away beauty. And I wondered aloud if we should pull over and try to get a photo of it. I mean, it was that spectacular.

Just then we rounded the next curve and came upon a guy who had pulled his pickup truck off to the side of the rode and hopped up into the bed. He was holding his phone aloft to the sky, trying to capture its magic.

I suspect we were all enthralled by the moon’s magic that night.

All of us driving on that cozy winding road, making our way home.

A remarkable moon playing hide and seek among the hills and trees, offering itself for a few moments around every bend.

Maybe we’d get an entire minute of it on the straightaways before it disappeared again behind the landscape.

Until that last turn, finally out onto the open highway, where the moon shined us all the way home, releasing us into that sweet spot between being vs. doing.

The next day I opened my laptop and discovered an email about the moon.

Could it be that someone else had an experience like mine? With great anticipation, I started reading.

But it wasn’t anything about bathing in the presence of that beautiful moon. Instead, it was all about everything I could do to make the most out of it. Like intentions and manifesting and taking actions to make my big dreams come true.

In short, another list of to do’s.

On the being vs. doing continuum, it was all about the moon as a goal setting tool.

I’m happy to say I did not think about goals in the presence of that moon. Thankfully, in that moment I understood that I needed to be with the experience, rather than trying to figure it out or direct it.

However, I also have to admit that I have facilitated many journaling circles where the full moon was our guide. Often we explored prompts about what needed releasing or doing in our lives.

And even though it a was a mostly symbolic experience, in the background I sometimes felt a sense of needing to get somewhere or do something with the results of my journaling.

Our minds do tend to fixate on doing when we’re in the push-pull between being vs. doing.

This makes sense, because the human ego tends to want to concretize almost everything. So if there’s a way to make goals out of something we probably will. While this can be beneficial, there’s also a downside: if we believe we’re not living up to those goals, we may judge ourselves harshly and feel inadequate. Then our thoughts can take over too, creating stress, anxiety and worry.

Even in the guise of communing with nature, we may inadvertently do this. That internal drive to do is strong and obviously supported by the constructs in which we live.

And when we experience too much of our lives through this lens of doing, we miss out on the “multidimensional complexity of experience.”

In being mode, there is a sense of freedom and freshness as experience unfolds in new ways. We can be responsive to the richness and complexity of the unique patterns that each moment presents. In doing mode, by contrast, this wonderful multidimensional complexity of experience is boiled down to a narrow, one-dimensional focus: What does this have to say about my progress in reaching my goals?

-Zindel Segal

In other words, our most transformative (and healing) experiences are often in the process, not the outcome.

When we can step away from the being vs. doing conundrum, there is space to allow a pause, to stand in the presence of what is.

Maybe that’s a glorious full moon or something else altogether. But the amazing thing is, these moments of wonder can be had almost anywhere, anytime.

If we make ourselves available to them.

Maybe you’re longing to make yourself available to more being and less doing too?

What I’ve been learning is that being doesn’t always arrive on its own. In fact, it often needs a gentle invitation.

Not another task to complete or goal to accomplish, but a small act that reminds you to step out of doing and into the richness of the present moment.

So you might experiment by…

• lingering with your morning coffee before reaching for your phone
• stopping the car for a beautiful view
• sitting under a tree without needing to photograph it
• placing a stone in your hand
• noticing the fragrance of jasmine on the evening air
• writing a few lines in your journal without trying to solve anything
• walking outside just as the moon is rising
• let yourself become absorbed in birdsong, water, wind, or rain
• pausing long enough to let wonder catch up with you

These aren’t ways to become more productive or enlightened.

They’re simply ways of remembering that you’re already here.

There’s a sweet spot on the being vs. doing continuum and many of us are longing for the freedom we experience there. Although it’s hard to articulate I know how it feels. You probably do too.

But it takes practice to extend this invitation to ourselves. And even more practice to open the invitation and show up.

Personally, I think the guy in the pickup got the being vs. doing thing just right.

He slowed down, pulled off the road, stopped. He didn’t take that photo through the windshield. And he didn’t nonchalantly hang his arm out the window either.

Nope.

He made the effort to jump down from the cab of the truck and then climb up into the bed. I figure he had to work to balance his body on the slight incline, stretch his arms up and reach his hands toward that shimmering circle of amber light.

Sweetly balanced between being and doing.

I don’t know, maybe he posted his photos all over social media. But even if he did do that, something tells me that first he got back in his truck and made his way home to his family. And they all gathered around to ooh and aah, to bask in the light of this astonishing moon that had now risen high into the sky.

At least, that’s my fantasy. That’s what I choose to believe.

*****

If you’re a woman who’s approaching (or in) your midlife and beyond years and the time feels right to make yourself available to your own wisdom about being vs doing …you’re who I created the Wisdom Tending Circle for.

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