Confusion is not pathology, it is path. It has something to show us that whitened, reflective clarity could never reveal. There is wisdom inside the uncertainty, but it is only released into a psychic environment of curiosity, interest, embodiment, and warmth.
The feeling of disconnection is not neurotic, it is intelligent. It has something to show us that oneness could never reveal. Travel inside the felt sense, though the hidden passageways, and you will find the emissaries awaiting. The allies of multiplicity are not at war with unity, but fellow travelers with them on a journey of wholeness.
We are neither “separate” nor “one,” but the erupting holding field in which the energies of “separate” and “one” interpenetrate and dance the relative into being. Neither of these concepts are majestic enough to contain the mystery of the soul. While we may have a preference for unity and oneness over multiplicity and differentiation, it would appear that love does not share this bias and is ready at all times to equally employ either of its manifestations to be its envoy here.
Those visitors of raw, achy, lonely broken openness are not neuroses to be cured or mistakes to be remedied. The shaky vulnerability is not pathology, it is path. As our perception is cleansed, we see that these ones are not obstacles, but passionate, yearning requests into the tending to the lost grief, joy, rage, and peace of the unlived life.
The freedom we long for will never be found in the eradication of the unwanted, but only in deeper layers of attunement to the love and the information it carries.
At times the burning can seem unbearable. Such is the nature of the human heart. We may burn until we are translucent, but it is by way of this burning that wholeness is revealed.
Photo by Stefan Schweihofer
Befriending Yourself - you are invited to join me and my friend Jeff Foster at our new online membership site at the intersection of spirituality, meditation, and depth psychology. Dialogues, teachings, practices, live meditations, and a moderated support community.
The next retreat - The Deep Rest Retreat: Slowing Down and Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times - September 4-9 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado - registration open now
My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is available in both paperback and Kindle editions.
My next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True in 2021.
