The Relief of Not Having To Make It Not Hard
Something I’ve found myself saying to my three year old lately is: “Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes it’s hard, and then it gets easy again.”
Waves! Light is made of waves. (Also sometimes particles?! a whole world to research if you are bored!) Sound is made of waves. Waves are made of waves! The emotional world is made of waves. We don’t necessarily have the physical tools to perceive these kinds of waves (?), but if you are a student of your own mind and body for any length of time, you might notice the wave-like quality of your emotional states. This is how it appears to me.
The waves happen in the course of an hour, a day, a month, a year, decades. There are hours that are hard. There are hours that are easy. There are months and years that are hard. From the hard place, the easy place feels miles and centuries away. It appears to be at the top of an endlessly laborious mountain. It appears to be way too far into the future. And then we arrive at an easy place, and it feels like it will always be this way, like we have arrived and we will never forget, like it has been here all along, just out of view.
My experience so far has been that I remember and then I forget. Things feel hard for so long. Then some moments things feel easy. When they feel easy I imagine that I will always remember. But then I forget. And I imagine that I will never be able to remember again. And on like so.
I tell my child this, mostly to remind myself. Because it is endlessly compelling to imagine that the state I am in will be the state forever. I tell my child this to remember that no amount of evolution or growth or spiritual ascension will make it otherwise. This is not a problem. This is not a personal failure. This is a part of the structure of earth school. (Or so it appears to me right now hahahaha!) It’s strangely relieving to connect with this truth for me, because it means I’m not doing anything wrong if I’m experiencing discomfort, grief, rage, sorrow, or any of the thousands of variations of pain that are possible for humans to perceive.
I want to offer this concept to my children, so they might find the relief of acceptance of this rhythm of being alive that I can sometimes find!
The relief of the acceptance of the rhythm of being alive.
This is one of the ways I’m answering the question
WHAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF DEATH DENIAL?
today.
I’m reminding my children as a way of reminding myself that living on earth is not fulfilling when I avoid the hard. No matter how much my fear might insist avoidance is the way. Accepting the hard as fully as possible has a way of lessening the hard. Acceptance is an alchemical action in this way.
It’s also not getting too stuck in the hard - remaining open to the possibility, and the inevitability, if these are waves, that an easy wave will come. Or a peaceful one, or a serene one, or a slow one, a little one, etc. (Are any two waves the same? Are they like snowflakes!?)
Okay - so that’s a start! An inauguration of this series of essays I’m writing this winter. I’ll get more into Pluto as it’s related to this very soon - a divine guide pointing us toward the transformation that is death in all its forms.