At times the visitor of melancholy will appear, arriving from the night world, from the moon, not to harm, but to reveal. A tenderness, a disappointment, a raw achy uncertainty. The guide has appeared but wasn’t quite what we thought. Such is the way of the heart. As we are made into dust, the fire is tended.
While it may be tempting to replace the burning with bliss, the sadhana of disappointment demands that we listen, to the stories and feelings and whispers and longings, and place the shattered pieces on the altar in front of us.
To trust in our immediate embodied experience and to renew the vow we once made to no longer abandon ourselves. And stand in awe as we turn toward a sacred reassembling.
Even if we cannot love, accept, or transform what has come, we can always bow. What this bowing looks like for each of us will never conform to others' fantasies and ways; for the map is weaved deep into our soul alone.
We can fall to the ground and bear empathic witness to the broken wholeness, to the wisdom shining out of the human heart, for there is no greater temple.
Photo by Devanath
My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available
The next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True
The next event is The Healing Shame Retreat: Spiritual Awakening and Transforming the Core Wound of Unworthiness, April 24-29, 2019 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, with co-facilitator Jeff Foster
