The Path Leads toward your Light

I thought I was still in my dream, with that low slow rumbling in the background. Everywhere was dark, I was not able to tell which, what or where. It was like walking through a black tunnel into a bubble of pure blackness. Then a flash opened my eyes. It was a dream, was it? Flash came again through the drawn curtain and followed with the loudest crack in the sky I have ever heard. I could feel my body tremble as the whole air space around me shook. The sky must have been split in half up there. So much hope for the super blue moon tonight…

But…. An hour had passed, then two, my patience had run out. I felt my temper rising. It was 3am, the coolest and quietest time of the night… In that instant I knew I had collapsed energy. There was no way to pull back, I had to let my steam drain somehow. I took the dog out of our bedroom, into the yard for a stress relief and placed her in the pen upstairs. She stopped panting when I left her. My bedroom was quiet now. I was able to return to a bubble of safe space. Nothing could stir me. I drifted, finally, in the music of light rain drops, and faint thunder drumroll, back into another dream. 

So this was another quick dip into the collapsed energy, I had not had such episodes for many weeks if not months. I thought myself fortunate to be able to stay small and calm in this especially long stretch of summer heat, with the boiling world around, literally on fire. So much was out of balance, I counted myself lucky. Then something as small as my dog reacting to the thunder triggered me into such a frenzy, I let myself become lost, so easily. 

How often do we lose ourselves without even knowing it? Do we know what the triggers are? Do we always know the part deep inside us that the trigger matched? Do we know that we have means to bring ourselves back from that dark collapsed space? Do we believe that no matter how inconceivable it may seem at the time, there is always a way out ahead, we just have to reach for it?

In this fortnight, I wanted to sleep, I had been annoyed that I had gone to bed late because the dog training class ran overtime, neither of us had a proper wind-down. Everything was rushed. The thunder came when I first drifted away. Dog’s panting was the salt over the wound. My mental state demanding for quietness screamed so loud, so unrealistically, it escalated to me jumping out of the bed, storming out of the bedroom, not much better than the condition outside the window, and worst of it all, dragging the dog along… Out of not wanting to take responsibility for not placing my own well-being at a manageable level, I lashed out with all the blame onto my dear Meiko. I thought she should have been ok with the thunder. She should have listened to me when I asked for quietness, she should have obeyed. 

But No! It was all me, the doorway into the moment of collapsed energy always resides within me. I should have wound us down before bed knowing we were rushed. I should have planned a little better having read the weather warning. I should have restationed her earlier before everything escalated. I should have done all the work but instead, I got comfortable too quickly, I became lazy.

Luckily, I knew I had been falling into the darkness, anger had lighted up my awareness within, much like the lightening, flashing at me, telling me to slow down, to turn, to find a way to dissipate. At that apex of my anger, allowing myself to collapse back into the dark bedroom was the easiest way out. I was alone now, quiet and becoming calm. I asked to sleep however long I still have of this night, to iron away the disturbance that had so emotionally rippled through my physical body. 

When I woke again in the morning, the storm was long gone. Everything looked and felt fresh. I was happy to see the daylight. I felt such gratitude for the passing night. It offered me a new perspective on how to still accept and love ourselves amid collapsing into our DarkPath. Think of us when we were back in our mother’s wombs, that dark bubble, safe, nourishing, mostly safe and loving. Imagine you are there when you feel lost and alone, or when you feel you are against the whole world inflamed. Find yourself back into that familiar space holding you steady, listening to that single drum of a heartbeat. Let it guide you, however slow; Take breaths there when you are most safe; Regain your balance where you are most protected. And when you are ready, start to walk, through your umbilicus tunnel, till you see your light again.

So be gentle to yourself when you stumble upon your DarkPath next time, find yourself back in your own dark but healing womb, know it is temporary, know it is a pause there for you to regain your foothold, know that womb is for birthing. We are meant to grow through birth and rebirths, so we arrive anew.

I have just come out of another such process, and I felt lighter, better and happier.