Darkness: 10.28.2013

Photo by James Maher

It is terrifying to love. To really love the world.

The crisp Autumn light illuminates the golden letting go--each fluttering in a spectacular demise. The breeze pushes the end of the year over the edge. A life complete.

Last June, when leaves were plump with green, I went to Sandglass Theater to see "Triangle," a puppet-theater show about the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. A grim page in US labor and immigrant history, women were forced to make the decision to jump nine stories down or be consumed alive by flame. Many jumped. A spectacular demise of another sort.

Across the country in California, camping in Yosemite, it was a few days before I returned to Time defined as 'pre' and 'post' 9-11. I have never seen the footage of the Twin Towers falling or people fluttering in the morning light. Ties and skirts flapping up as gravity descends. A life incomplete.

I have seen the iconic Vietnam photo of naked, napalmed, nine-year-old Kim Phuc screaming, "Nong qua, nong qua!" (Too hot, too hot!).  Growing old before the photographer's lens, she is robbed of her childhood.

If you decide to wholeheartedly love, you are guaranteed wholehearted heartbreak.

When it becomes too much, I go to Salmon Creek beach and take solace in the sea, seals, shells. I nestle in the sand. The ocean's rhythmic and constant voice comforting, like a mother stroking the hair of her child and whispering the magic and beauty of all things. She says, "listen to the salty breathing of the water, it is your own heart beating."

And what of our waters that cloak seventy percent of the earth's surface (and seventy percent of our own bodies)?
Out of sight, out of mind. Yet, on one of the most remote islands on earth, the albatross' plastic filled stomach hangs about our necks as the sun and salty air hold hands with the grieving passage of Time to reveal the debris of civilization. I withhold my love for convenience when I reach for a plastic bag to transport my broccoli the 7 minute ride home. Do I notice the weight around my own stiffened neck?

I'm reading an interview of my clown Maestro. The question is, "What gives you hope?" He replies, "I would say that to be hopeless is blasphemous and self-indulgent....hopelessness is lack of faith. And lack of faith is highly destructive."

An Elder, with thick, expressive hands that shake involuntarily with the electricity of life, his laughter a booming vibration, once told me that in his culture there is no such thing as an extinct species. The spirit of the animal will withdraw and disappear, but it is not gone. It is waiting to re-emerge again when conditions are hospitable. When we are not terrified of really loving the world.  It was comforting to hear and entertain that possibility. That despite the destruction humans are capable of, we are not that important or powerful--there is something bigger at play.

I met another man. We met through sentences. He was a scientist surrounded by cutting edge data. He told me we have gone past the point of no return. Our actions have set into motion irrevocable consequences. We are in the midst of our own spectacular demise. "Most people are asleep," he  told me.  They will not accept the horror of the Dark Mountain. For him this knowledge catapulted big life changes--leaving his job and dedicating his life to art. The urgency prompted him to love and live more deeply.

Fight, flight or freeze. I immediately feel depressed. Frozen in my fear and despair. I could feel the shadow of the Dark Mountain sweeping me into its belly. Oh, tender times, beware! For Darkness has the ability to consume all Light, or, it can be the vehicle for contrasting the brilliance.

Either way, the path leads to it. The choice is whether to walk through. And it won't be pleasant. You may have to withstand the heat of stones. You may have to lose all your bones and lie naked in a puddle of mud and grit fashioned from your own sweat. You may have to expel the imbalance, retching until the disease lies enervated before you in putrid chunks and acidic liquid. Your body immobile, except for the eyes as they witness the generous earth swallowing it up. Transforming it in her belly.

When you reassemble your bones, you will walk in an upright manner. A ratio in your stride as you meet the outstretched road. Each track leaving a collective footprint, each footstep bringing you closer to the life pulsing in your chest...to your wholehearted heart breaking open.