In this last year of break down and change, fear and turmoil, one of the things I have resented the most is the loss of the pleasure of mornings. In the past this was often my favorite time of day—that period in between sleep and waking where everything felt delicious. My body fluid, sometimes bubbly with a golden cloud energy. Listening to the birds, feeling Tiger’s warmth near me. As close to ecstasy as I’d usually get in a day. Now those moments don’t exist. For some reason mornings are my worst time. I awaken in anxiety rather than bliss. My stomach has squiggles in it rather than a golden cloud. I try to breathe and relax, but at most can get the grip to let go some, not ever really sink into pleasure. I’m not sure why this is. I guess maybe I let my guard down some in sleep, and the fear that I battle with during the day, gets loose. I don’t feel hopeless about it—it’s not as bad as it was a few months ago. It’s just that it pisses me off. One of the nastier little bits of this process. So I”ve begun to think of it as dark mornings of the soul. Just letting them be seems to be more real than trying to get rid of them.
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I read something in the intro (by Thomas Moore) to Mirabai Starr’s translation of Dark Night of the Soul this week that, combined with an experience in some bodywork/therapy I”d just had, really helped me see something. He writes that we tend to see difficult feelings as a form of illness, which we hope to conquer, cure, and expel, but that John of the Cross saw the purpose of life as union with the Divine, which can include dark nights. He writes,
“At the end of struggles people sometimes claim that they have gone through an ordeal and have come out happy on the other side. One senses a degree of pride in the accomplishment. But I’m not convinced that these victories signal the kind of darkness John describes so carefully. Many spiritual guides warn us that we can play tricks on ourselves, bolstering a fragile ego with the thought that we have triumphed in a major rite of passage. The difference lies in the congratulatory attitude: ‘Look at me==I’ve succumbed and survived’ “.
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I think the ongoing, one blow after another, one loss after another, of this year, have finally gotten me to a point of knowing that I won’t ever be quite the same as a result of it. My illusion for awhile was “oh this is a bad time, but I’ll get on the other side and be fine and live happily ever after”. Like that was the contract—put in your hard time, then the reward and I’d be above it all. But I’m realizing it’s not like that. I don’t see happily ever after as the goal so much now as being more loving and open in the midst of whatever is going on. I don’t know that I am capable of it, but am doing the best I can. Starr writes , “The dark night is about being fully present in the tender wounded emptiness of our own souls. It’s about not turning away from the pain but learning to rest in it. Rather than distracting ourselves from the simple darkness at our core, we sit with it, paying close attention, and opening our hearts to all that’s left, which is love. It is the cultivation of compassion for our suffering selves and for all selves who suffer…” I read an article the other day about farmers in Australia losing their way of life due to draught. How many of them are losing everything, how many are suicidal. And my heart was right there with them, seeing the agony in their faces that I have seen in my own==no separation between them and me. No, “oh well that’s their problem”. Having gone as deep as I have into my pain, it dissolves boundaries between me and others that in the past would have made me more safe or comfortable.
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Related to that was a revelation I had in the midst of a body/therapy session. I was right back in the agony of a time earlier in my life, a pain so deep I felt I’d break apart. After coming out of it, it came to me that I did not live in that place as a child—I was not in constant pain and misery. I really had a lot of fun. There was this tenderness for myself, knowing that some part of me was strong enough to rise above that pain, and find a way to enjoy life. Because I did==I had lots of fun in childhood and after. But that strength/ability of mine was a double-edged sword. It allowed me to survive and even thrive. But it also kept me from ever having to deal with that deeper pain. As long as I could avoid it, I was leaving a whole part of myself buried and leaving a deep longing unacknowledged. So it occurred to me that this past year has done that too—finally disintegrated the last of my defenses, the ways I’ve had fun and gotten by. It’s beaten me down to a place where I’ve had to feel the pain that’s still there and the unmet longing. Which I would have avoided my whole life if I could have. So I guess the hopeful part is that maybe I can move more toward the true fulfillment of that desire, being more aware of it, no matter how much it hurts. Starr writes “Humility, for John, is the gentle acceptance of that most tender place inside ourselves that throbs with the pain of our separation from the Beloved. It is that deep knowingness that identification with the false self brings nothing but further separation. It is an initially reluctant dropping down into the emptiness and an ultimate experience of peace when we stop doing and rediscover simple being.”

Though I haven’t gotten to some place of being on the other side of this, brushing hands off, “whew! done with that!”, and though much of the fun I’ve had in life is not present right now,there are moments of grace within it that feel like they keep me going. Connecting with friends, the beauty of nature, and of course Tiger. Those add the glimmers of light in the darkness, as does my heart when I can feel its love.

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