The Loving Void

For those who may be feeling an excess of uncertainty, a threat of emptiness, or visible erosion of life structures, personal and collective, this post is for us/you/me.

With all that’s reaching heights of chaos in the collective, it might be a good time to remember that what erodes us, when unmasked, is actually the geologic force of our own measureless love.

We have been trained to respond to the rumblings of change through associated chains of memories, of times when we were caught off guard in an ugly, painful way.

Can we pause to recall the many times when life surprised us with fresh loveliness sprung from mystic depths of something unreachable and pure, blooming like crocuses when we didn’t even know there was anything there under the snow?

The mind state into which we are daily nudged through technological and other means has a tendency to get caught on the barbs of those times when our souls were blacked with bad experiences.

It’s the worried, harried survival mind who places priority on those surprises that were too horribly overwhelming in the moment of their arrival, for us to feel fully safe forgetting them (even though we did survive them.)

With loving acknowledgement for our vitally important survival instincts and all the apparatus of psyche that belongs to that complex, I want to gently invoke the awareness we also have, on deeper levels, that everything is and always will be all right in the end.

We are all heading back into the loving arms of our origin, quickly or slowly. Death is not what it seems to be. This is a temporary realm, a flight from God, and all that we undergo in this dream will come to pass away, because we aren’t meant to be in the separated state forever.

The life force that gives us our bodies, our health, our smiles, our creative inklings, our riches, our interiority and our exteriority, our love and even our mourning of that love, is our friend. This friend, who is the irresistible presence that pulls our most cherished life experiences into our consciousness, has a plan for us that far exceeds survival.

We did not come here to be safe. We came here because we are safety already in our larger aspects. We came here for the limitations themselves, and the experience of sequential unfolding. To be some, and not all, of everything, for a little while. To be small for a bit.

So when the smallness of our lives starts to quake, tremble and fold into the center, let us not make the mistake of thinking that the ending process is the end. The only thing that ends is time, the only thing that dies is death, we can only lose our separateness.

Friend, I hope you are able to find some comfort in remembering Who is at the core of your life, Who it is who is living your life, living life as this little-seeming you.

My invitation to you:

Think about what is underneath the shifting, dappled sun-play of your life’s many changing appearances. What underlies your river-like world of ceaseless turns, of wax and wane?

It is normal to form attachments, you are not a bad doggie if you are scared of change, or mad about it, or if you grieve the exit of a loved one or cherished condition upon whose presence you have come to rely for comfort, passion, or beauty.

But maybe you can also remember that the life force is on your side. Can you do that when things seem to be in their disappearing, in the void, in their nothingness, and not in their arriving or their somethingness? How might you remember to trust what is at work in you?

Create an art piece to help you remember that love is what drives the sometimes-unwanted changes in our lives. It is love that shakes off what has become disconnected from life, and fills that space with new, living forms.

Lyrics:

I know that since I said hello, I have to say goodbye

so if I slip into the water, the sun will surely dry me

I know that since I said I'd come here, I've been cut down to size

I wagered my savings on a crapshoot

But I am the ticket and the prize

and there's a low moan coming from my home

a deep sigh is soughing in the trees

rustling through the sad songs that we sung

a fertile hush in each and every one

I reach just a foot above my forehead

and a mystery keeps my bones aligned

I'd give up finishing the crossword

if my bird brain could find some peace of mind

I am a house, well all structures are unstable

and coyotes have moved into Detroit

and now there's green grass pushing up the concrete

and the vacant lots are full of light

and there's a low moan coming from my home

a deep sigh is soughing in the trees

rustling through the sad songs that we sung

a fertile hush in each and every one

—

Thumbnail image is of a William Morris design

Song made in 2009 by Holly Mae and the Painted Room, with infinite thank yous to the Ann Arbor band & Mike Billmire especially especially, forever and ever.