Vanish

This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.”

-Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

I still feel so far away from myself. It is as if I practiced walking away from myself during my time in Thailand, with a certain level of excitement and a sense of adventure. Now that I’m not there anymore I cannot find me.

What do I even want? The only clear answer I can come up with lately is a relief from this constant pain. I feel as if I know what I need to do to set myself on the road to recovery — meditation, solitude, space, community — but I don’t know how to obtain or practice those things in transition. I cannot, will not, or just do not do them.

I have this urge to just disconnect. A fantasy of vanishing like a ghost. To let go of distractions. Embrace pain. Embrace solitude. To reset, to restart. To return to myself — some sense of self, anyway. Strip off the outer layers and lay bare my essential essence. Cross the miles between me and the heartspace and allow myself to camp on its shores.

I’ve built up this life around me — we all have. This life full of shoulds. Things I can and cannot do. Obligations. Absolutes.

What would happen if I just discarded all of them? Not even discarded, but just stopped holding onto them and let them fall to the floor? To disappear, to vanish from this constructed consensus world where things matter that make no sense and simplicity is trampled by manufactured necessity.

I look around and I see so much misery. I see people escaping their lives and I resent them for it because their escape is a mirror that reflects my own desire to not be present because the present hurts too much, too often. Misanthropy begins to take up space in my heart, an unwelcome guest.

Find love again. Find hope. Acceptance. Joy. Faith in people. In freedom. That the absence of pain is possible.

Let it all fall to the floor.

You owe nothing.

Pain comes to all those who draw breath.

You are not a devil, or a monster. You are human.

Camp on the shores of the heartspace.

And breathe.

Divination

To live… to live would be an awfully big adventure.”

I used to feel like my life was so small. The circle of people and things that I cared about was cramped and lonely, but it was a known entity. It was easy.

Now my life feels so big. The number of people that I know and care about, and who care about me, has expanded exponentially. Full of love and connection. When I start to think about all of the people who have come into my life over the last two years my heart swells with gratitude.

The present is clear — love, fulfillment, connection, people. I know there is more connection and love ahead of me but that is so hard to see now. The future remains shrouded in uncertainty. I can’t see it yet, so my heart keeps screaming at me, “why are you taking this away from me?” I know the answer, and I don’t. I can’t explain it, even to myself. I’m trying to quench that fire every day, and it makes my heart so tired.

I have no idea how to do this. I have no idea how to move forward from here.

I thought recently about the heartspace again.

I thought about divination. The reading of bones, astrology, reading palms, astral projection, the Great Spirit, and peyote. Life after death, heaven and hell, your loved ones live on, death is only the beginning, “To die would be an awfully great adventure,” spirit returning to the Earth

Humans are compelled and hardwired to make order out of chaos, and to recognize patterns even where none exist. This is a great strength, but also the source of so much of our suffering. So, we throw the bones. We literally create a random pattern out of nothing for our minds to interpret in order to explain our inexplicable, painful, short, little lives. 

As I thought about all of these things that I do not feel are truths within my subjective reality, I thought about my own truths, and the heartspace. All of these divination techniques, these religions, these supernatural explanations — this is just a list of all the different ways that we reach the heartspace.

There are an infinite number of doors, but they all open to the same place. That human place. The place where we are all connected. The place where we can take comfort in knowing that we are not alone in our suffering. The place where the discomfort of existence is not to be explained, but accepted and shared by every being that draws breath. 

Holding two opposites in our bodies, our minds, and our hearts, at once without being torn apart. Love cannot exist without grief and loss, peace without fear, acceptance without resistance.

It is my essential truth of human existence that tears at me every day. In order to let in the love of the world, I have to let in everything else. I can’t think of anything harder. I cannot imagine a more impossible task to ask of myself. 

But I am not alone.

Mote

Acceptance

Accept…

that you cannot explain this feeling

that you may never be able to

that it is inexplicable

Let go of this if you can 

Instead of holding onto it, try broadcasting it, like a signal sent out to the universe

Let it go and let it be formless

Let it flow out of you 

Broadcast it and don’t worry about whether or not or how it is being received, because that is something that exists beyond the boundaries of your control

Grasping will only smother the light; 

Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light is winning.”

-Rust

A story that is both a truth and a lie;

“I find myself alone, surrounded by darkness. I can see my own body as if it is lit by pale, silvery moonlight. The inky darkness seems alive, like a black velvet cloth undulating around me.

“I look down at my hands and I notice one of them is clenched shut. A soft light burns within and makes the skin of my hand glow ever so slightly. Within that fist I can feel a warmth, and through the hairline cracks between the fingers of my clenched fist I can just barely perceive the light within.

“I want to see it, but I fear that if I open my fist the light will be swallowed up in the darkness, lost forever among the many folds and shadows.

“I can feel exhaustion seeping into the cracks of me. I can feel my hand aching with pain. That pain radiates up my arm and into my shoulder and across my back. I know I can’t hold onto the light forever. I know that holding that light prisoner is tantamount to imprisoning myself.

“In the face of the inevitable I decide to let go. I open my hand.

“The brilliant yellow light defies description, and yet is known to all. The motes of light begin to slowly float up and away. Initial panic is replaced by relief and acceptance as shafts of light radiating out from the center sweep across me and brighten the light within me that I had forgotten was there, like stoking the embers within a long-forgotten fire.

“I think about the people who handed me this priceless, yet freely given, gift and gratitude swarms in to mix with the love, joy, and fear.

“I soon realize that the darkness is not all that inhabits this place. As the motes of light drift ever upward I see them moving towards a vast ribbon of light, like a river in the sky adorned with countless floating candles. The light floats up and away and collects with the other brilliant lights in the heart-space.

“I realize then that I never could have held onto that light even if I wanted to. You can’t hold onto something that doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to everyone.”

Know that you are loved. That you deserve love.