When the sky boiled up and the darkness chased away the light I was on the front porch watching the action until the tornado warnings reached my ears. So this photo tells us that even nature has a dark side. Life is no exception, for suffering is a fact of life and saying YES to it and finding a way through it help us become a trusted escort of compassion to those who also suffer. I love the paintings of a friend who was going through breast cancer treatment....women clutching their breasts, women with just one breast and figures with none. She was finding a way through her suffering with strong statements that expressed her anguish. And, now that she is cancer free, she is the compassionate escort to my beloved daughter-in-law in her battle with ovarian cancer. There are distressing voids in life where the cheerful words of hope and promise may interfere with the process of what is happening. Sometimes it is more helpful to express the angst than to ignore or gloss over it. It is saying YES to sitting with what is personally true in the moment that we honor our creativity. Anything else is resistance which drains our creative energy. An unconditionally embraced event or predicament becomes a threshold to what comes next. If we do not jump into the unexpected territory of pain and suffering with the banner of hope to gain control, we get to dance with the dragons instead of shove them under the bed to grow even bigger. It is this beautiful contrast that makes and shapes our composition.
"For we must be clear that to live or love only where on can trust, where there is security and containment, where one cannot be hurt or let down, where what is pledged in words is forever binding, means really to be out of harm's way and so to be out of real life. And it does not matter what is this vessel of trust...analysis, marriage, church or law or any human relationship." James Hillman
No comments:
Post a Comment