Within the core of the scattered pieces

As we surface from times of confusion and uncertainty – yet before we emerge into rebirth and flow – we often find ourselves passing through an in-between place.

There is a greater transition that is said to occur between the death of this physical form and when new life materializes, but these flashes of in-between are occurring all the time, as death and rebirth co-arise moment-by-moment.

Each dawn the moon falls away, she passes from this world and yields to the solar, who eventually gives way to her form and her grace as the dusk arrives. This entire process occurs not only in the outer world, but within the inner landscape as well. But we must cleanse our perception to attune to this level of unfolding.

This alive middle territory between the darkness and the light is often characterized by a certain kind of heartbreak. A cloud has lifted, but the clarity and the new have not fully taken form. There may be a sense of a rebirth that is pending, but we find ourselves a bit sad about it all. Not a depressing or crushing sadness, but one that is raw and tender, and somehow contains within it the seeds of hope.

I have found this to be a very rich place to explore, creative and life-containing, but an experience that is often overlooked and devalued in our world. Yet this tenderness is a field of aliveness, meaning, and intelligence, if we will learn to mine the jewels buried only there.

Heartbreak has been pathologized in our culture with a rush to replace it with joy, peace, happiness, and certainty. These are all very valid of course but if we abandon the heartbreak along the way, we may not be able to provide the fertile field in which these other states can arise and flower authentically. For allowing our hearts to break is what seems to give rebirth permission to occur.

If met fully and with mercy and honor, validating it as psychic experience of integrity, this shaky falling apart reveals a compassion that is found only in the shards of that brokenness, in the core of those scattered pieces, which we can use to help ourselves and others in ever more wise and creative ways.

Photo by Ivan Karasev

My latest book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next book, The Unfolding Heart, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come

My next event: 

The Great Befriending: A Five-Day Journey of Self-Love, Deep Rest, and Coming Alive (with Jeff Foster), September 21-26 in Loveland, Colorado 

The wisdom of not-knowing

There’s a fantasy that we’re supposed to know what to do with our lives. And if we do not then this is clear evidence that something is wrong with us, that some cosmic error has occurred which must urgently be remedied by figuring it all out.

Especially if accompanied by waves of uncertainty, hopelessness, and confusion… more evidence that we have failed or fallen short, fueled by further imagination that psychic states such as contradiction, doubt, and deflation are not very “spiritual.”

What about the endless stream of “high” vibrations? The manifesting of more and more cool things for myself, that I’ve dreamed will make me happy? And the accompanying inflations of a happy-happy solar-based self-help industry which has pathologized the wisdom of the darker, lunar shades of the spectrum.

At times it will appear that nothing is happening, which can lead to a framing that we are “stuck,” “not doing it right,” or “lost in some sort of ‘low vibration.’” The mind has a nearly unlimited capacity to fantasize, especially in ways that enact early patterning of shame, self-abandonment, and misattuned empathic failure.

But before we turn from the non-conventional allies of confusion and doubt, let us slow down and reimagine. In a world that is fixated with doing, with answers, and with resolving the contradictions and wildness of the human being, we must remember that death is required for new forms of love and creativity to emerge.

As an experiment, you could say out loud, with the earth as your witness, “I don’t know.” And give yourself permission to not-know, for now, without any shame, judgment, or pressure to resolve the mysteries of the heart.

There is profound wisdom and creativity in the core of not-knowing, in slowness, in patience, and in rest, but we must retrain ourselves to receive that level of revelation. In this reception, we see that not-knowing is a perfectly valid, honorable, and authentic place to be, and not in need of transformation. It is a pure expression of life, in and of itself, exactly as it is. Its value is not in its transcendence, but in its embodied embrace.

Art by Anja Osenberg

My latest book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next book, The Unfolding Heart, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come

My next event: 

The Great Befriending: A Five-Day Journey of Self-Love, Deep Rest, and Coming Alive (with Jeff Foster), September 21-26 in Loveland, Colorado 

Oneness and separation

In close relationships, it is important to emphasize a secure attachment bond and the co-regulation of emotional activation. Practicing kindness toward our partners, listening to what is alive for them, caring for their suffering, and holding them during difficult times. Allowing them to matter, taking the risk to share our own vulnerability, and prioritizing connection.

It is also essential to be on the lookout for unhealthy fusion, honoring the reality that we are not only connected, but also separate. Any secure attachment must include healthy differentiation, where at times the most skillful activity will be to enact firm boundaries, actively assert our independence and needs, and be willing to disappoint others.

While the concept of oneness is alluring, true oneness does not exist without embodiment to multiplicity or without a radical embrace of the chaos, contradiction, and darker revelations of the spectrum of love. The wise navigation of opposites – staying within the complex and unresolvable tension between them – is an act of profound compassion.

Healthy intimacy is not the same as emotional fusion. Those called to relationship as path must make this discernment in the fire of their own experience and stay committed to working with the contradictions as they arise.

Yes, we can speak about our oneness with all of life, but we are also separate, each with our own unique histories, ways of organizing our experience, and distinctive core vulnerabilities. To dissolve these differences into some homogenized spiritual middle does not honor the sacredness of form.

If we do not consciously explore the reality of our separateness, it will inevitably express itself in less than conscious ways, unleashing our unmetabolized shadows into the relational field. Like all work of depth, this art evolves slowly, as it marinates in the alchemical vessel of the body.

May we be kind to our partners as we navigate this territory together, honoring the vehicle of intimacy as one of the most transformative, sacred, and challenging that we have in our modern world.

Art credit: Valentine Tree by dear Alice Mason Artist

My latest book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next book, The Unfolding Heart, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come

My next event: 

The Great Befriending: A Five-Day Journey of Self-Love, Deep Rest, and Coming Alive (with Jeff Foster), September 21-26 in Loveland, Colorado