It is inevitable at times that the rug will be pulled out
from underneath us, and we will come face to face with the naked, tender,
glory, and mess of what it means to be an alive, sensitive human being. Things
will fall apart, old dreams will die, relationships will end, and the allies of
deflation and disappointment will dance in our hearts. Before we spin into the
trance of shame, blame, unworthiness, and defeat, let us turn into the
brokenness where the particles of aliveness await.
It is tempting to become convinced that something has gone
wrong, that we have failed, this time as a good spiritual person. “Spiritual”
people don’t experience anxiety, depression, rage, jealousy, fear, and
hopelessness … right? What about staying the now? Stuffing the rage and
forgiving everyone before you’ve digested the deep pain that was caused?
Accepting and loving everything that appears without first confronting the
heartbreak? Repressing the grief and replacing it with a consistent flowing
gratitude for all that is. Clearly something has gone wrong … hasn't it?
Inside the deflation is a hidden truth that the path of the
heart is not oriented in how we can manufacture a life where this does not
happen, where we can remain safe and untouchable on the sidelines, in some transcended
(dissociated?) state … for periodic eruptions of the beloved and her unknown
emissaries is wired into this particular star. The rippling encounter with the
tender and the groundlessness is not an indication that something is wrong with
you, but is high-voltage evidence that you are alive. For this disenchantment
is the prima materia that he or she has to reach you. These are no ordinary
moments. This world needs alive women and men, now more than ever. Please stay
awake.
Rather, the question during these times is: are you going
to use these reorganizing and shattering experiences as vehicles though which
to befriend yourself, to attune to the unprecedented flow of feeling with you,
and to weave a sanctuary for the wisdom-pieces of the broken world to be held
and illuminated? Or, will you fall back into your habitual, conditioned
history, attack yourself, your tenderness, and your sacred vulnerability,
spinning into the habitual fight-flight urgency of shame, blame, resentment,
and self-aggression?
It is not pleasant when the rug is pulled out and old
dreams collapse, as this activity seeds the experiential field with the
radical, fierce envoys of deflation and disappointment, who are here to
reorganize, not to maintain the status quo. But it was never the status quo
that you were after any way. You’re just too wild for all that.
Seen with an open heart and perception that is cleansed,
you will apprehend this reorganization as a wrathful form of grace, filled with
a light that is only found in the core of the dark—preparing, marinating, and
opening you into something beyond what you’re currently able to imagine …
arranging the particles so that the mystery of what you are may fully come
alive here.
