Death is a strange and multifaceted experience.
Over the last few years I have experienced this life changing transition in many forms. Whether it was the death of family members, the death of friendships or the death of parts of my identity, each time I was left changed forever. Transformed by the gift of insight, love and surrender to forces beyond my human control.
This week however, like a bolt from the blue, I was told that friends of mine had lost their young daughter to cancer.
Have you ever had a time when nothing seems to make sense anymore?
A period when the ‘normal’ activities of your daily life suddenly feel strange and out of place?
When the people you used to enjoy being around begin to get on your nerves?
Work you used to love stops being fulfilling?
You become bored with things that used to excite you whether that’s food, TV, sex, alcohol etc…?
You feel discombobulated (love this word) and can’t seem to keep your focus?
Recognize this?
GOOD!
There have always been stories that tell us where we came from and why we are here. They differ in shape, size, colour and character, yet at the end of each tale there always seems to be a call back into life’s biggest secret.
Have you ever heard the phrase ‘being in the world but not of it’? This has been rolling through my head increasingly over the last few weeks as I have moved from one seemingly tumultuous political environment to another. Whether the politics being played out are personal, organisational or national doesn’t really matter. It’s all made of the same messy human narratives that have the potential to suck us into their vortex of fear of the unknown! The process of breaking down in order to eventually breakthrough is one that few of us are ‘good at’. Indeed, I would challenge whether anyone living through times of intense chaos and transformation gets ‘good at the process’ when they are in the middle of it!
One of the biggest tests we will encounter in our busy lives on this planet is that of ‘the blank space’.
Huh? You may ask.
The blank space is one of the hardest to find and yet it’s there all the time. Waiting.
The blank space is called by many names, none of which recognize it’s inherent value to the human soul. Boredom, depression, lethargy, confusion, fatigue, stagnancy… all alchemical states of transformation.