Sunday, June 28, 2020

Enter the mysterium


Falling apart, holding it all together. Then falling apart, then coming back together. Cycles of clarity and confusion. Hopelessness and hope. Heartbreak and bliss. Knowing who we are and why we are here in one moment, deflated in the next as an old dream is recycled into the vast.

As in the natural world, inside the body the sacred process of death and rebirth unfolds. At times an expression of unity and order; at other times chaos and multiplicity. Each pole a carrier of wisdom, guidance, and the water of life.

Inside the opposites it is alive and creative, but there is no solid ground from which to orient. No familiar reference point to look back to or rest in. Only tenderness. Raw. Open. Pregnant. Potential. But what will be reborn from the ashes has not yet been given.

If we remain too identified with “falling apart,” we lose contact with that which was never unhealed, untransformed, and was never “together” to begin with. That innate radiance, the holiness of the breath, and the miracle of having an open sensitive nervous system. We disconnect with the magic of embodied presence, the wisdom of the earth, and the unshakable confidence in our true nature.

But if we remain too identified with “holding it all together,” we split off from our organic spontaneity, imaginative vulnerability, and the truth that the beloved will take whatever form it must to reveal its qualities within us. Raw, achy, illuminating heartbreak may approach at any time, requesting safe passage inside. But it is through this broken aliveness that the poetry of our lives will flow.

Right in the middle of “falling apart” and “holding it together” is the secret place. Send your awareness, vision, and breath into that temple, where the light and dark play in union. Enter the mysterium. It is from there that something new may emerge.


My new book - A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times - is now available for pre-order at Amazon and will be published by Sounds True in November. Learn more about the book (including a full list of online retailers) and early editorial reviews and endorsements here


We've decided to leave our monthly online community, Befriending Yourself, open for enrollment during these uncertain and challenging times. For more information, please visit the course page here