Digestion

I like to nom on concepts. To get them like a bone in my maw and gnaw away.  I enjoy tasting, slurping, and devouring ideas. I love the feeling of them slipping down my throat.Some days though, the aftertastes can be challenging.  The time it takes between rounds of consumption.No matter how much I want to take in new ideas, sometimes I am simply full. I need to digest what is already in my belly, lest it all come back up if I add in any more.I have no interest in being an intellectual bulimic.Change that – too often in my life I have unintentionally been one. Not regularly, not normally… but the behavior has been there from time to time. I am not habitual, but yet it has been the case.But I have no interest in it.Thus, I am sitting right now with the notion of digestion.What does it take for us to transform what we have heard into what we understand? What becomes a part of our life, lifestyle, choices, or journey? Where is the line between what we know and what we comprehend?Last weekend I had a number of new ideas come into my world, or in other cases, ideas brought to the surface and delivered anew before my eyes. Ideas on colonizing our partners, on privilege, on core desires that others have shown distaste and more about. Ideas of training, speaking our mind, and knowing when to shut the hell up. Ideas concerning following our heart, after learning how to listen to it. What fulfills us, while still paying attention to what fills us.I am nomming on you. I am rolling these around on my tongue and taking them down… and yet.And yet I need time to digest.I have always considered myself an interpersonal learner. I have stuff sink in by having it go out of my mouth. I learn so often when I teach. I learn as I write this, out, to you reading. My solo journals sometimes help, but knowing that you, out there, are reading me, helps me learn. I become aware of my voice as part of the whole.But today, as I share, I am also digesting.I am taking a sip of water and sitting. Sitting here with you.