The Clinging

Human beings are dependent creatures; dependant upon water, air, food, warmth, shelter, love and friendship. All these needs can be met in our external environment.

But our soul needs sustenance as well. Without fuel, our light burns out.

We feel that dying ember inside of ourselves and we seek a source to re-ignite us. Out of habit, we go to the same places we get all our other needs met.

Sometimes we go to food. It comforts us when we are low, doesn't it? But after a bowl of mashed potatoes, or ice cream, or Ruffles and spinach dip, our bellies are full, but our hearts still ache with emptiness.

Sometimes we lie in bed, cocooned in our down comforters. When we are cold, doesn't that warm us? How come it does not thaw the chill around our soul?

Sometimes we turn to our friends, our family, our beloved... didn't they once set our wings to flight? How is it then when we have crashed, even that love does not provide us with lift?

A drowning man reaches for a rope, a buoy, a preserver... forgetting the air in his own lungs inflates him and allows him to float.

When times are difficult, we abandon our inner balance, reaching for the external fix. When the external "fails" us, we lash out and further sink ourselves.

It is in these moments we need to cling to all that we know to be good and true and correct and divine WITHIN ourselves. Cling to truth. Cling to acceptance. Cling to the sacred. Cling to the holy.

When I finally go into that space of clinging to the holy...

all gritted teeth

and knotted fists

and primal screams...

it takes a little while, but there is a tiny breath that sighs.

It is such a infinitesimal shift...

a minute gap of perfect peace.

If I am still enough, I may notice it. And if I surrender and fall into it, it opens and expands and it cradles me.

I cannot tell you how many times it has renewed me... saved me.

But like waking from a dream, I always seem to forget and end up going through the same throes and spasms of emotional epilepsy over and over again.

I am writing this post from the dream.

Like a bread crumb on the path from the dark forest, I hope it reminds me the next time.

"We must break completely in order to be made whole.

Purge until empty before being filled.

Die to be resurrected.

We know this ~ but still expect it to be painless."

Namaste,

C H E Z

Comments

[Jessica]

beautiful! right on target and so beautiful