Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I am sitting on the sand overlooking the Pacific Ocean, watching the birds soar and dive into the waves.  It is an overcast day, grey sky, grey clouds and grey sea, which has a beautiful soft light to it all.  The serenity is palpable as is the hypnotic rhythm of the waves.

The sea is closer to the beach house in recorded history – it is not hard to imagine the day the sea simply swallows the dunes and the homes on the shore; reclaiming the land, decks and rooves, windows and stones, awash in the waves of the ocean.  As I sit on the beach, miles from this moment of sweetness, acres and acres of California are burning, devastating forests and homes and businesses.

We live in a world of duality . . . a world of opposites. Serenity and upheaval, eat or be eaten, light and dark.  We know which way is up because there is down; most of our experiences are seen as good or bad and for the most part we are taught there is a right way to do things and behave and there is a wrong way, often important learning for our developmental growth, hopefully helping us get along in the world.  When we stop and question the state of our world and our lives, we are far more used to conflict than we want to be in our heart of hearts.  We watch and suffer as we become divided at times and find moments of unity at other times. 

In moments of reflection, we might wonder who are victims and who are oppressors.  Who is the mystic and who is the terrorist?  Am I the good guy or the problem?  At some point, if we are paying close attention, we come to the realization that it is far from black and white, there is nothing simple or obvious about it.  There are only sides of things, shades of grey, nuances and textures.  Everything is enormously complex and fluid and inseparable from everything else. When we genuinely look closely at this, we see that nothing actually settles into the neat boxes of black and white that make it so easy to judge and hate each other.  Haven’t we all, at some point, in our human condition, acted out many of the roles – hurting someone and being hurt?  Being pig headed in one moment and being quietly kind to a stranger in another.  Haven’t we all experienced ourselves being confused and making matters worse?  Or what about being able to genuinely walk in the shoes of the person or group that feels threatening, maybe even dangerous? 

I remember sitting and listening to a speaker; I suspect the speaker was vital and alive, probably animated and honest . . . connected to what she was saying.  But mostly what has stayed with me is the unbidden (and important) insight that came to me, as truth can and does show up when we least expect it.  I saw that, to me, everything about life was black and white/one dimensional/flat and, in that moment, I intuited a technicolor reality, not having any idea, at that time, what that really meant for my life.  

We live in a dualistic world that is expanding, ever so much so.   We are designed to open and grow (just as our alive planet expands) and get bigger and bigger, opening our minds, hearts and gumptions wider and wider, increasing the capacity to contain and embrace and accept (love) all that appears as dark and light, pleasant and unpleasant, sweet and sour, good and bad - with equal neutrality – not holding onto either perspective.

We are invited to play . . . to play with the profound polarity of it being this way and that way.  Left is opposite of right; it is hard to imagine a world of up without down. The paradox that always co-exists, gifting us with the possibility of experiencing what is beyond our human mind. The paradox of we are one and we are two at the same time.  We are no thing and we are every-thing. They come together and yet they appear as opposites. 

Technicolor! The technicolor of experiencing that which is beyond our human mind. The technicolor I intuited listening to the speaker is the shimmering of transcendence (the field beyond right doing and wrong doing that Rumi points to) that shows up when we are living full up of presence.  When we are present to this moment, the ordinary thing that is happening right now, the very thing in our immediate awareness, everything is vibrationally alive, encapsulating and transcending opposites, transcending our conditioned mind, our personalities . . . our personhood.  Living in technicolor, present-based reality is overwhelmingly moving; breathtaking in fact.  

Seeing the world as it really is.  The ordinary is seen as IT.  When the conditioned mind falls away (even for a moment) it tends to explode that dualistic energy and suddenly the world is seen as it is, exquisitely real and immediate, ending the search for anything other than this ordinary, right now, moment. 

In knowing our true nature – in experientially knowing it is all, ultimately, impersonal we are then free to play with the polarity and opposites and consciousness of the relative. Only when the ocean is known can the waves of the ocean be enjoyed and known for the miracle it is. 

Often what keeps us from living in presence is our fear of the dark.  What we don’t want to look at, what we are afraid of, what we judge to be off the table, remains in the shadow of the psyche, remains dull and full of projections and judgments. This projection of the dark (towards ourselves or another) keeps us from seeing the miracle of the cup of tea in front of us.  The projections of the fears and hopes that live within our conditioned mind keeps us from really experiencing ourself or the cup of tea. 

We all suffer from the anxiety and anticipation of what darkness means to us.  How we live with that suffering is what makes a difference.  We have the makings within ourselves to transcend the opposites of duality and discover ourselves as pure presence, the field of equanimity beyond all suffering. This is what we come back to, an equanimity that can bring us to our knees in awe.  Incredibly so. Wake up to the oneness so you can enter into the holiness of this relative realm.  

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, spent his lifetime paying attention to our psyches, often using a map of opposites that lives within us.  Who hasn’t experienced the power and force of seemingly conflicting energies running through our system . . . being a good girl/boy and harboring resentment, showing the world how tough or strong we are all the while hiding neediness and tenderness, being ‘on your game’ all day long and needing one more drink at night . . . anything and everything that shows up in our conscious mind has a compensatory energy in our unconscious, sometimes close to the surface and other times the compensatory opposite is buried deep in the unconscious and it is only by paying attention to its signals that we become aware of the conflicting energy.

We live with layers and layers of unconscious material, hidden away in the darker recesses of our psyches, not only accessible to our consciousness but apparently designed to be manifested and lived.  In the largest context we are whole (Jung called the divine within all of us the Self) . . . we are made up of the material of the stars and the universe and are designed to integrate fully and live from oneness. 

In fact, what arises from the unconscious can be the very soul of transcendence when allowed into the light of day by conscious awareness.  When we are willing to sit still, (not react); when we give ourselves the time and space to allow the conflicting energies free reign to alchemically mix and heal and transform, the natural process (Jung called it the transcendent function) will deliver us to a new, wider and deeper prospective.

I know this to be true.  Having looked deeply into the dark, over and over, discovering each time, like the very first time, expansiveness and clarity and profound love in the heart of the darkness.  Yes, it is challenging and daunting and sometimes downright terrifying to look, but turning towards and leaning into the dark has revealed, again and again, the scrumptious sacredness of this life we are living, this mysterious experiment we are in the midst of, the potency of the ordinary, and the folly of believing in the story of separation. 

It is easy to feel thankful when things are going well – it is another kettle of fish to not resist when things are hard and ugly, opening ourselves to life as it is even when we have no inkling of how, or even if, we will find our way through the challenge or difficulty.  Being grateful for the dark is a game changer.  It cuts through a morass of assumptions and resistances – almost like the deepest within us sits up and takes notice of our serious devotion to knowing what is real and what is true, regardless of the aversion and fears of the darkness.  

This willingness, this devotion can be a portal into the presence of the moment. . . into the deeper truth – the eternal nature of presence that goes on and on forever, opening wide, in slow motion, peaceful and full of creativity and aliveness . . . where everything is truly alright, no matter the circumstances. 

Experiencing the opposites, look into darkness and wake up to the consistent presence of light.  Sit still, listen carefully, and discover the treasure within: the energies of wholeness, oneness; the treasure of your very real nature that activates beyond good and bad – the very real essential nature that is at your fingertips.  

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I will give myself to it.

 I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Rainer Maria Rilke