There are times when things fall apart. When internal and external structures, references points, and the axis around which we spin is dissolved… not by ourselves, but by nature, by the great Other.
In the face of this dissolution, it is very natural to go through a process of disbelief, fear, and rage. What will happen to me? To my family? To this world? To sentient life?
It is essential that we turn into this dissolution, which is a wrathful, yet holy emanation of the soul, of the beloved as he or she or it makes its way into this world of time and space.
To take some moments to slow down, root into the earth, and to craft these bodies as vessels to contain, hold, and integrate the feelings, the images, the impulses, and the uncertainty. These experiences, though difficult and challenging to tend, are not obstacles to our path, but are the very essence of the path itself.
As we offer safe passage and sanctuary for the falling apart of me and my world and how I dreamed it would all turn out, we step into the realm of the warrior. Our heart is turned into a temple. Inside this temple, fearlessness does not mean never being afraid, or pathologizing fear, transcending, or shaming it. It means the profound, alive, creative, empowered willingness to meet fear, moment by moment, with the power and beauty of our brokenness.
As we turn this body into a vessel of presence, attunement, curiosity, and love – and as we metabolize and assimilate that which we’re being asked to hold now – we might discover a tenderness underneath it all, a soft spot, even a soreness, an ache. It is an ache of grief for this world, for how fragile, temporary, delicate, and tenuous it truly is here.
How precious it is, how rare, how outrageous, even, to be given another breath. This breath. And this one.
In this recognition, we see that whether things are falling apart or staying together, somehow it is workable, what we’re feeling is valid, and that our lifeline is that invisible bridge that connects one heart with another.
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.
My previous book - The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You - is available at Amazon.
My monthly online community, Befriending Yourself, co-facilitated with author and spiritual teacher Jeff Foster, is currently closed to new members, but periodically opens throughout the year. To place your name on the mailing list for additional information, please visit the course page here.
