I awoke this morning convinced that I might as well begin the new year fulfilling my potential to become the mean and angry person it seemed I was meant to be. Maybe this was the year I would yield to my destiny as a hit man or a dognapper or a baby snatcher. Maybe I could at least get a job writing parking tickets or turning down deserving people for home loans. Even if I had to settle for being a bitchy old woman who patroled the beach threatening to turn everyone in who walked an un-leashed dog, I felt I could do a damn good job at it.
Then I went to yoga. In the park. At the beach. You know. All that blue sky and glistening water. Swaying palm trees and dunes simultaneously all soft and resilient against the sea. And the yoga teacher. What she said was something about the word hatha meaning light and dark--and I think she said it meant both the light side of the mountain and the dark side of the mountain. Or maybe I was just looking at the dunes and interjected the image of a hill into the business about dark and light. In any event, I thought Yeah, I sure as hell am on the dark side of the mountain. And I am. And I'm not sure I have what it takes to climb up and over that mountain to the other side right now, but maybe I should not pursue becoming a hit man and just stand still and wait for the light. It will probably take a while.
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| I like how the light here looks both like a mushroom cloud and a palm tree. |
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| The pile on the left is what I found today. The pile on the right is what I've found in the past 6 months. |
5 comments:
I'm sorry for your hardship and heartache. I know that you will come out the other side -- or that it will be "easier" to hold both sides, to live all right in the darkness and the light. Sending love your way, always.
"Hatha means forceful in Sanskrit , according to Ellen Stansell, PhD, RYT , a scholar of yogic literature and Sanskrit."
Grief is a bugger. It's like the ocean in how it ebbs and flows. The light is always there, we just can't see it sometimes. Being outside, being near the ocean I think would be the best thing for grief.
"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea."
Isak Dinesen
Sending hugs.
I don't have any words at all to offer you except to say I'm sorry and that sure, the light will come around again but you know that. Doesn't help much, does it?
Loving you.
This speaks to me so deeply right now. I have been the darkest dark, the worst possible me, for weeks now. It's not just depression, I've indulged myself in my dark side. I've done this hoping it's a step forward. Because maybe trying to repress it isn't doing me any good. So my shadow side has been out in full force. It's a fucking rocky time and it hurts everywhere--I'm thinking this might be how you feel too. I'm glad you wrote this. I feel it. I'm there with you.
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