Every year
everything
I have ever learnedin my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other sideis salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.~ Mary Oliver
I wanted to touch on something – something palpable but that I can’t quite put my finger on. In the last few months I’ve been noticing an energy of loss – of loss, rest, and a glimmer of renewal on the horizon (but hasn’t arrived quite yet).
The energy is still raw – it still shimmers with the freshness of wet soil after a storm.
I’ve been noticing my own path through – and my own tendency to want to want to plow through it quickly, painlessly, ungracefully … like ripping of a band-aid. But I am starting to realize that it doesn’t work like that. What we resist persists … but also … what we don’t make time and space for … what we don’t allow to flow on it’s own time (and not our preconceived notion of a schedule) … also persists.
It’s so easy to say and think process (think … oh, yeah, I’ll be good in a month/year/etc.) but much harder to practice and to allow. To invite in the yuckiness feels counterintuitive. And yet it is both sacred and necessary.
To process … what does that even mean?
I think sometimes we have this idea that we go through something difficult, we cry, we weep, we get angry, we “process”, and then we’re “good to go”. But life is just not linear. Process is not a step-by-step guide to “getting over” something. But we want step-by-step … we crave it. I have to admit; I find it as satisfying as constructing Ikea furniture – there are tears and frustration, but in the end you have a lovely bookshelf. What I am starting to realize however is “process” is more rich and complex than this linear way of looking at it. When we give permission, we journey … a path that is often surprising, soft, and intricately woven.
When we give permission we can learn to paint with all of the colours of the rainbow and not just the ones we associate with automatically. We can lean in. We can step out – and back in again. We can live in our own body and walk with our own two feet. We can stretch our wings to fly … or wrap ourselves in the tenderness of caress.
We need it All. And the All. Is. Huge.
That’s why we need to make space. That’s why we need to allow. This vastness of support constantly surrounds us and we believe that we are alone and isolate. The illusion of separateness. The illusion that we are not held by something greater.
The theme of loss has been with me for a few months now – in both energetic and physical layers. It has come in and out of my daily practice and meditation to explore – and now to share. I’m sure there are more layers here to unfold … and so I will continue to share as they are called to come through.
For now, I just wanted to leave you with this:
We are built for this.
We are built to be held and to hold. We are built for experiences and intensity and subtleness … have patience with yourself. Find a way to remind yourself everyday that you are exactly as you need to be in this moment – Pure. Love.
Love,
Jenn