The Hole at the Center of My Being

In recent months I have looked into the vast hole at the center of my being, the gaping hole of need and want that feels like it will never be filled, the painful hole of emptiness that makes me try to cling to experiences and people desperately with an addictive craving and a feeling of hopelessness and powerlessness at the same time. I have looked at that hole, that shadow self, that darkness, head on. I have felt its grief and terror and painful need and longing. I have looked at the very thing I never wanted to look at or acknowledge or feel. And in looking into that hole, it has lost some of its power over me. It's not gone, by any means. It's just less terrifying than it seemed.

And now I know on some level that it is not real. It is an illusion. There is no hole at the center of my being, no yawning cavity waiting for someone or something else to fill it. At the center of my being, at the center of every being, is an indescribable fullness, a richness, and the source of all that we truly desire--all the love, all the healing, all the wisdom, all the guidance, all the joy.

Although I often feel utterly cut off from this source now, I am not cut off from the knowing that it exists, that all I want and need is within me, and I do notice that the "power" of the hole is less and the fear of it is less. I no longer believe someone or something else could fill it. I no longer believe it would kill me if I were to look into it or feel it fully. This is a blessing, the beginning of freedom.

The Grieving and the Dying

The grieving and the dying
just go on and on. It's amazing
what a life they have,
this life of loss.
Neither right nor wrong,
this fucking heart.
Who knew the story
would be all about pain?
Who knew
you'd be asked to give everything, then
give up some more?
How is it
that the birds
singing and chirping this morning
are so unconcerned by this,
do not even know
loss's name? How could humans
have ever thought they were better
than the animals, a life
of suffering superior to a life of song?
You'd do me a great kindness,
you gods, to let me come back
with flight and music as my only goals.
Of course,
they are my only real goals now—
but i don't reach them
with the ease the birds do—
except for love—
that's the one, the hook
where i am caught and the flesh
around my mouth tears,
and i bite down harder,
unwilling to let go.

Living in Love

I am understanding now that part of how this transformation is working in me is to push me to surrender to Divine will, really let go of trying to run the show with my mind, with fear and the desire for control and sure outcomes, and instead to live from heart; it is pushing me to find real freedom within. And the way it works is that everywhere i still hold on, everything i cling to, causes me great suffering now. Amazingly i still do hold on, but the gods are making that very tough for me now.

Also, anytime i dwell in fear, anger, judgement, criticism, i feel terrible pain until i return to a state of love and trust. They are making so that those negative states become more and more unbearable in myself, and i also feel increasing discomfort with those attitudes in others, when people are going into fear and judgement or petty thoughts. My friends still attempt to "advise" me from this place, out of a genuine desire to help and protect me, but it just invokes amazing pain if i start to believe what they are saying--i.e. "he's just no damn good"--or else discomfort if i don't.

As this slow, agonizing transformation in the chrysalis takes place--my old body disintegrating and a new, unfamiliar one forming--i feel a widening gap with some of the friends and family in my life, harder to relate to them, to find common ground between my way of living and seeing life and theirs. That's hard. I cannot live a lie or pretend to be that way now or that it's ok for me to be negative. More than ever i am moving toward total honesty--always a passion of mine--and the truth of reality, which is that it is all Divine love. This isn't just an abstraction, it's the way things are--and being out of alignment with that, which i frequently still am, causes me to suffer horribly now as a means to push me back where i need to live--this deep state of love and surrender, not knowing, moving from heart guidance, even when it seems to make no "sense." There's no other way. The gods have created in me a no turning back situation.

My intense longing for wholeness, peace and liberation is created by the agony of not being in it. Robert Fritz (The Path of Least Resistance) would say that's not a good way to create, out of a desire to avoid something negative, that it doesn't work in the long run, and he's right, it's not a heart movement. I need to create out of a vision of the positive. The vision of the positive i have is love, real love, universal love, the experience of love everywhere in all things and abundant within myself, the experience that there is only love, and the joy, freedom and aliveness that brings. That is my vision.