Give it Up

How do I know I'm progressing without the feeling of resistance?  What if I were to swim in a frictionless sort of vacuum?  What is up, what is down?  Am I going anywhere?  Does it matter?  

It's scary to release the feeling of holding.  Where am I, how can I establish some sense of direction, some sort of gravity to guide me?  Who am I if I let go?  Who is my inner teacher, with what voice do they lead?  

Perhaps there is a way of life, an implicit acceptance that fills the air here, that seems to flow without force.  I think maybe I feel it, and that it seeps into me without thoughts to catch and scrutinize.  It must be the same in any place in which we grow up, in which we live.  We start to breathe a texture and hue.  It becomes imprinted upon us, without our knowing.   

By what measure, what indicator, can I guide myself in this new water?  Do I need to?   And yet so difficult to relinquish such a thing.