Tell me how you get on.

@Susan Tutt

The intensity brought by events in my life over the last year have quietly eroded my concept of being a strong and compassionate person into insignificant particles that no longer resemble my identity.  The grinding factors have been the loss of a dear friend under traumatic circumstances, grief of a relative’s mental breakdown and working hard without enough counterbalancing play.  

Several days ago a strong wind of awakening swept this dust of identity into space.  It felt immediately freeing as when a burden you’ve been carrying is released and you experience a new found lightness.  I saw the burden that had been my identity clearly – a specific way of viewing the world as ‘unjust’ and of my need to ‘rectify justice’.   No replacement view came in … only a new burst of energy and spaciousness. However, a few particles of this egoic view were still clinging to the crevices in my mind, trying to assert the view of unjustness because it feels empty without having a ‘view’ to hang onto.  

Adyashanti, a modern spiritual teacher, describes the dissolving ego as a deflated balloon.  No air, but still a form which is lifeless, yet waiting to re-engage as the driver of the ‘mind.’ Yesterday, my partner and I had an early morning ego-clash and my balloon re-inflated slightly with some hot air of ‘see how my partner is so uncaring, so why should I care?’  I took this attitude into my re-inflated ego and it gave me an altitude that seemed to view the world as ‘a painful illusion’ that I no longer wanted to inhabit.  My weariness about the world comes from my life-long sensitivity to its pain and its beauty, as well as exposure to strong doses of both throughout my life.

Today, after a sleepless night, I sense that this internal shift of ‘no view’ is scary to the last remnants of ego – and in particular the question arises ‘if I lose my ego, how will my life change and will I lose that which I love (especially my partner)?’  As I asked the question, my body relaxed because it was no longer a hidden fear, but out in the open for me to see it as only a question and not a definitive view. 

I’ve been losing my egoic ‘sense of ambition’ for many years now.  It has been gradually replaced by faith in life’s unfoldment – a type of knowing where the egoic will has taken a back seat.  But when the ego isn’t shouting instructions from the back seat, who will be in charge?  That is the question that lurks in the shadows – but I answer back ‘a divine force that you’ve been waiting for so you don’t have to do all the work anymore.’  I sense a ‘sigh’ from the dark and a movement that feels akin to seeing a flicker from the corner of my ‘I’. 

As the nights draw in and we’re back on daylight saving time, we’re making our descent into darkness. For many of us, this is where SAD rears it’s head. We have various scientific explanations as to the cause of this from lower levels of light reaching the cornea, to lower levels of vitamin d. We try to fix it with our typical strategy of trying to escape the darkness by forcibly lighting it up- we have massive daylight lamps and sunrise clocks, all which do help. Anything to avoid the darkness which terrifies us from seeping into our bones. 

We are terrified by darkness in all its forms-  winter, night, difficult situations which happen in our lives, our shadow- all the things we push down and refuse to face. Our shadow tends to raise its head in darkness, another reason why we can feel worse over Autumn and Winter! 

But what if there is another way? A way which involves surrender to the darkness rather than resistance? A way which teaches you to welcome the darkness, to love it and find comfort in it. We mostly are able to appreciate a blanket of snow for how it changes our world- turning everything white, muffling the noise into a beautiful soothing silence- and we make the most of it, going out doing activities that we can’t usually like sledging, making snowmen and having snowball fights. We mostly are able to surrender to a snowy day and accept its presence and a different way of being in the world- we put our life on hold a bit and embrace the new world. That is unless it gets in the way of our hurtling through life, of getting things done, interrupting any plans we may have had and we have resistance to the great hamster wheel of life being brought to a halt. 

In a way, this is what we need to learn to do with darkness. To embrace it and make the most of the opportunities it affords us because although it might get in the way of everyday life or how we want life to be, darkness is holy and sacred and where alchemy happens and it holds as much magic as a snowy day. We need to learn to drape ourselves in that inky black blanket, which softens and smooths out any edges and muffles the noisy world that we live in, and snuggle in it.

Darkness and this time of year is like returning to the womb. Or the cocoon where the caterpillar transforms into the butterfly. Back to rest in darkness, grow and to transform, only to be born anew. It is coming back down to earth just like the leaves do when they fall from the trees, deep down into the soil, sinking down into your roots to nourish them.  This is a fertile time to plant your dream seeds for them to grow when the conditions are right, when the seasons of your life can support the growth of the seeds so they bear fruit later in the year. It’s coming back home to yourself, turning your focus inwards, turning your energy back towards yourself to conserve and renew your precious resources just like a bear hibernating in a cave. It’s a fallow time to rest and restore just like nature does over the winter months. Nature does not bloom all year long so why do we place that linear expectation on ourselves as cyclical beings? This is why many of us struggle because we have the expectation to be the same as we are in summer. 

Let the darkness find its way into your bones, let it seep into all your cells, drink it in like a thirsty nomad wandering the desert and you’ll grow eyes which can see in the dark. With these new seeing eyes, you’ll find a beautiful light in the empty darkness , which lights you up and fills and completes you, like the full moon in the night sky. 

And you’ll find you don’t need that SAD lamp anymore. 

@Susan Tutt