Talisman

Part I

I open my eyes to murky light filtering in from a window at the end of the room. The walls look misty and distant, the sheets seem gray. The only color is an orange number on a lightly buzzing machine. A man arrives, I know because of his title that his stiff coat must be white but it looks like he is wearing a jacket of brushed metal, even his name conjures metal: Dr. Pierce. His tests confirm that my entire colon is the culprit and he recommends its immediate removal. He leaves, never getting closer to me than 10 feet away. Another doctor arrives shortly after, this time a woman and I can see compassion and sadness in her eyes as she looks into mine. She tells me that I will need to have open heart surgery sometime in the near future. I find myself curiously detached at this second piece of news—I don’t feel that my heart is broken in the same way that my guts are—they have been on fire for the last 5 months and my heart, utterly quiet. She leaves. Then, the cataclysm of grief hits me. I am shattered and alone, filled with devastation.

Inishowen, County Donegal

I now see that lonely moment in the hospital as the twilight of my dark night of the soul. I was just stepping into the darkness; I would never again know innocence without experience, joy without sadness. A deep groove was being carved into my soul. The abyss that I had fallen into was fraught with fear and pain and awareness of my mortality. Would I survive this? I would, but in the coming years, I would become aware of my own ugliness, my own soul-sickness, my own hopelessness, despair, and defeat. But I would also catch more glimpses of my true self, not the self that was constantly positive, enormously sweet and perpetually looking for the sunny and bright side of life. But the self who knew deep grief and compassion, that took responsibility for her journey and let go of the outcome, that was capable of unconditional love and open-heartedness.

I stood at a crossroads: something was kicking and clawing and screaming inside me—making me bleed and breaking my heart. Some part of me that wanted to be heard, that I had denied until my guts spoke so loudly that it was impossible to ignore them. Would I approach this beast inside me with tenderness and compassion? Or would I shove it away? Kick back at it? Would I hold it with a friendly curiosity? Wondering what it is, what it wants, what it’s trying to tell me? Would I ever be able to hold this aching pain with kindness and generosity?

I knew I needed help on this journey, a guide, a wise teacher, someone to hold my hand. I found a person trained in transpersonal psychology and somatic breath work. It wasn’t my first session or even my second, but early on in our relationship, she gave me the support I needed to explore the shadows. I discovered that I was masterful at punishing myself, at internalizing anger, at not speaking up for myself, at holding my thoughts and feelings in complete secrecy. At the first sign of external discord, I would collapse and turn all of my emotion inward. I would withdraw and shut down, not allowing myself to say what I knew to be the truth, not allowing myself to even have my own truth, but instead–going with the path of least external resistance, fostering peace that had a simmering resentment and burning hatred beneath it.

I chose to begin making peace with the part of me that longed to be heard and seen and felt. That has been my journey into and through the darkness and continues to inform my life. Will I hold myself and my feelings with tender curiosity and compassion or will I punish myself for even having feelings in the first place? Mostly, I allow myself to notice my feelings, choosing mindfulness even when I don’t want to look into the eyes of the beast that lives inside me, that is me. And I give myself permission to disengage too. But now I notice when I’m dissociating from the discomfort. Yet when I do look the beast in the eyes, I notice that this soft animal part of me just wants to be heard, that a drop of kindness soothes and relaxes it, that drops of acceptance pacify it, that it offers me messages that guide my healing. I have that choice in every moment even when the moment looks too dark to possibly bear; when the moment looks like death. Within that darkness is a black sun, the reciprocal and equal twin of the yellow star which illuminates our Earth. A luminous darkness that once acknowledged and integrated gives us wholeness, untapped reserves of strength and power, and a true connection with Spirit.

Part II

Today is an overcast, raw, and rainy day. My knees and shoulders ache. I want nothing more than to sit by a hot fire with a cup of cocoa and a really good book. A blanket wrapped around me, nestled in coziness. I still flinch away from grayness that reminds me of the entryway to my dark night of the soul. But I am out, running errands in the weather. I grumble, pushing my shoulders up toward my ears, hunching to protect my chest and face from the cold and wet. I plunge my hands into the pockets of my raincoat to keep them dry and feel something in my pocket. A smile pulls its way onto my face. My shoulders drop down and back and I lift my head to the rain, welcoming it, as it washes over face.

It started out by accident really. I was visiting Ireland which can be quite rainy and cold in July. I wore my raincoat every day for a week. One day, a farmer gave me a tour of his sheep farm; I met the sheepdogs, sheared some sheep, bottle-fed the lambs. I hiked to his peat bog where he gave me a chance to harvest peat. It’s tricky business wielding a long and heavy wooden-handled tool that is part spade and part fence-post digger while balancing on the edge of a muddy pit. But I took a turn and, satisfied with my attempt, tramped back to the car in my borrowed wellies. As I was leaving, the man gave me a fist-sized piece of dried peat and I dropped it into my raincoat’s pocket.

The first time I wore my raincoat after I had returned from Ireland, it was many months later and I pulled out this strange, lumpy piece of earth with bits of hay trapped in it. I was perplexed. But some impulse made me smell it and I knew right away that it was peat. Warmth and softness filled me as I remembered the hospitality of the Irish who are so genuinely kind, generous and thoughtful; who invite a stranger for “tea” (which in the US means a cup of boiled water over a bag of questionable quality tea leaves, milk and sugar, and maybe some cookies) and instead serve a three course meal finished with a dollop of cream and whiskey in coffee. I think of people who went out of their way to find me a gluten-free, dairy-free cake to present to me a few days before my birthday, so they would be able to celebrate me and my existence. Their care and open-heartedness was humbling and filled me with appreciation.

While in Ireland, I also visit a portal tomb called Poulnabrone Dolmen in a place called the Burren. A land scraped raw, the Burren looks otherworldly; great swaths of stone lay bare to the sky. And on the drab day that I go, the sense of barrenness and naked isolation is overwhelming. Until I look closer—tiny yellow and purple wildflowers spring up from every crevice, little shrubs and miniature trees and rivers of grass meander through the undulating sea of rock. I even catch a glimpse of a rabbit, and a lone fox that flits before I can raise my camera. And then there’s the portal tomb itself, looming, three enormous slabs of rock supporting a fourth that has the grace of a bird’s wing. Somehow it looks both heavy and light at the same time. I imagine that I would’ve known grief here at saying goodbye to a loved one but also a tremendous sense of hope, that death was a passageway to another world and not the end of anything.

We need talismans in our pockets, good company and mindfulness when we embark on a spiritual journey; a piece of composted earth that sustains fire is mine. On a gray day, it reminds me that I may turn my face upward into the rain rather than flinch away from it. It gives me pause to remember the black sun within. And reminds me that I can befriend the darkness. That I can welcome a strange part of myself with hospitality and thoughtfulness, as a friend I haven’t met yet rather than a devastating, destructive beast. I am reminded of the wild beauty of Ireland, the kindness, graciousness, generosity, and good humor of the people I met there. I am reminded that we must have a spiritual path if we are to make it through the darkness–a spark that lights inside us when the nights are long and dark. My little chunk of peat reminds me that what appears to be a tomb may be a portal to another world, mysterious for sure but not malign; an enigma with the exquisite perfection of nature’s finest creations.

Even if you aren’t in a dark night of the soul, but especially if you are, can you befriend the darkly luminous night within you? Can you welcome the black sun which will illuminate unknown aspects of yourself? Can you approach a shadowy portal with a sense of openness and grace even? It has unexpected gifts, I promise.