The shadow of death

I wonder about my life and it's dance with the shadows.  My daily living is rather dark these days.  I hear the shadow speaking to me but I still don't understand the message.  I hear the words, but the meaning is masked - it is, after all, shrouded in darkness.  Last Saturday my husband tells me he's leaving me.  He was standing in our bedroom in the darkness.  I was lying on the bed listening as he spoke from the shadows.  “I'm bored.”   We haven't even been married two years and already he seek sexual variety.  I new he was young when I married him but that does little to ease the pain.  Loss.  Death of a relationship is the hardest for me.  That's why I avoid connecting with people, I stay in the corner of the dance floor - dancing to myself.  Aloof some may call me, impersonal.  Life is impersonal.  We get born, cords are cut, we bond with people we love, they leave, we grow, we regress, our ego's are built up, destroyed, rebuilt again.  It's endless.  From the time we are born we learn to cut away from that which we love. I remain detached so when something is cut away, I can let go without losing big chunks of my self in the process.  I was talking to a guy last night at a bar, (who coincedently was drowning his own sorrows about his wife leaving him.)  After I stated my soap box claim that boys are stupid, and love is impractical, he gently suggested that that's what it's about. Taking that risk.  “Because if you don't, you're not living.”

 If I were drowning in a river, intinctually I would want to swim for shore, to find something to hold onto.  But what if I just went with the flow, let the river take me where it will.  Let go and trust.  Shouldn't I at least try to save myself, keep my head above water while the current has it's way with me?  Or am I meant to die?  Might I be reborn greater?

Last night I got a phone call; my grandfather - my father's father - is dying.  Bleeding from his colon.  Only a few days left to live.

Of course my shadow side wants to drink till I'm blind, until I can't feel feelings anymore.  But I'm bowing out of that dance.  She'll have to dance alone or find some other way to express herself.  I will not start drinking again.

“Ye, though the shadows of darkness walk through my valley, I fear no death.” H'vn Lee Skyes.

Re: The shadow of death

i was talking to my mentor a few years ago going through a VERY dark period. had lost my relationship, closed my business, filed for bankruptcy and pretty much had no idea what i was doing next, had some health issues going on and layers of self loathing about all that. he called me one evening and i was a wreck and in a really dark place and he said 'sounds JUICY' in this very pleasant way. oddly, it was transformative for me. in the midst of the darkness there was a part of me that was able to go into the pain without having to judge it as 'negative'. 

andrew harvey's book, 'dark night of the soul' has a good couple chapters at the start (the rest i thought was fairly neurotic frankly), as does thomas moore's book 'dark nights' or some similar name. haven't looked through the pod yet to see what books people are talking about.

when i was going through that time ramakrishna's thoughts on kali were helpful for me. 'though you beat me mother (divine mother) hold me.'

i like the kali-esque view on things from hinduism. the darkness being a teacher and an aspect where it may in fact not be 'evil' so much as something uniquely rich and textural. 

tibetans have the story of milarepa grappling with the demon and finally putting his head in its mouth and saying 'eat me'. i remember many a dark night sitting and just opening to the pain and saying 'eat me'. not that i was going to physically harm myself, but just saying to the darkness to consume me if it must, opening to it fully. the energy would move through me in a different way and it usually didn't feel great that night, but started to move the next day.

i also like to just pray through the night sometimes if it gets really dark. i like to pray to hindu deities (shiva is a favorite and/or kali when i get like that and just surrender into the inner imagery surrounding it. oddly it starts to move through me a bit better), or i meditate on skulls and skeletons, death, which is very tibetan buddhist. letting my ego dissolve.

i used to say 'if life sucks anyhow, i may as well throw out all this crap i don't care about'. if i am going to die anyhow, i may as well get rid of my yearbooks from highschool which i HATED those years. there was something very liberating about just letting myself let go.

i took some NEW DKNY jeans (technically cords) and cut the bottom off and made it trashy looking and then cut a pocket off and thrashed them up a bit as that felt at the time more like how i felt as my world was falling apart. i wanted pants that were from the thrift store at one point and clothes that were more beat up and since i didn't have any i got some used. a friend gave me some old used socks. i just felt like hell and it felt better to have more thrashed clothes.

best of luck in your journey into the dark.  will look through the pod and see what else others are saying and may add more.

-d 

Re: The shadow of death

Dear Rogue,

The cycle

death and birth applies to everything.  And so here I am, newly dead, raised and now walking along a path - letting my self go that I may be led beyond my small expectations for life.  Now that I'm up and moving again, I'll check in regularly, schedule permitting.  (see blog 8/6/07)