wax and wane

Isn’t it just a bit ridiculous how we expect ourselves to be able to maintain a disposition or perspective consistently. I just don’t think we can manually override the cadence of cycle. Happy people have sad days. Good people do bad things. It doesn’t unmake them, doesn’t make the good people into bad people. It seems necessary that we fall apart a little, or come undone, make a mess of things, or lose control. Where you bring your mind back to is what defines you.

In our daily orbit, we spend time in the dark and time in the light. Stagnant, then growing. Happy, then sad. No feeling is permanent. And holy shit this is terrifying. Because it also means the good is not permanent.

What we have not been taught to do very well here, in this time, in this country, in this modern mindset, is to abide in the down times. We begin thrashing about as though we’re drowning and it’s the end of days. It’s a knee-jerk fix we look for: a purchase, a drink, a burger, a high, social media likes, some attention, validation, distraction. I know this because I’ve been indoctrinated as well. (I buy stuff.) It’s that fear that the sad feelings you don’t want to feel and can’t control won’t recede like an exiting tide. That it will stay forever. That we’re trapped in our minds, like waking inside a closed coffin.

We’ve been trained to believe that a breakup can’t be mutual and peaceful. That outgrowing is abandonment. That letting go means you probably don’t care. That aging is a fate worse than death. And that death is a crapshoot as far as what might happen to you afterward. Not the most calming state of beliefs.

a long day of emanating white light

It’s balancing to look at the dark. But we need to re-learn how to think of it. How to observe it and release it. As with death. As with the end of a relationship. As with shedding an old version of yourself. I’m practicing, because this does not come easily, to not think of it as a permanent wash of feeling. Do not allow yourself to sit forever in sadness. Feel it, then let it be peaceful release. The dark is a place for your eyes to rest from strain. Ending is a place to let your mind and heart rest from the strain of the human urge to hold on.

Besides, some of the best art I’ve made was when I was tremendously sad, or lost. We wouldn’t be living things without this cycle of tension and release. We do not own or get to keep our loved ones, our pets, our possessions. What I am learning is that this is alright: it is not a loss, it is part of a cycle of how we exist together, and we always have everything. This is difficult to believe since we’ve been raised to see things as linear and finite. But this is crucial to your peace of mind:

In absolutely no way does letting go diminish the validity, importance, reality, or potency of love that exists or is created. Anything you’ve been told otherwise is fearful human bullshittery and should be forgotten.

However, understanding these things and living them are different points on the progress chart. We’ve been conditioned for so long to fear and grasp. Undoing this to become comfortable with release is our work. And until I’m entirely there, I’m still going to eat too many Girl Scout cookies when I’m feeling bummed.

Ah. Well. Zen wasn’t built in a day.

a long night of blackness swallowing the light