Fear Not Love
I realized after writing my last post, how dead inside I started to become while doing shadow work. I wasn’t even recognizing it as depression; just a struggle.
My blog has become a lot of bitching. I honestly thought I was further along than I am in this Dark Night of the Soul, but it’s humbled me further. One of my ego’s favorite lines has become “I’m doing all of this fucking shadow work and nobody else is and its so frustrating to have to make up for that.” I think we all get this self-righteous mentality at some point or another in any pursuit of value. When other people don’t value the same virtues, we feel like ours are invalidated unless proven virtuous. The arduous task of proving our virtue so that others will like us, tends to make us unlikeable.
Anyway, all this time, through all of this self-induced suffering, I’ve been looking for what I want out of life. I realized I was taking a lot of other people’s perspectives into account, but not really considering my own. As a free agent, I determined my goal was to be happy, and it didn’t seem like a lot to ask for. “All I need in order to be happy is to feel secure and confident in my decisions”. That was what my logical mind was saying anyway.
Inner masculine
That logic is my inner masculine energy. He has a plan for every problem as soon as it arises. He has expectations that, when not met, can ruin his day. He would really like for people to notice his intelligence. He’s not a bad guy but he’s kind of hard to please. I mean difficult… difficult not hard.
I began a fully involved thought experiment, last night, of being my mind and my body separate. Instantly, I was sobbing for the way I’d been mistreating my flesh. Rather than as the Divine Goddess temple, I was smoking cigarettes and eating loaves of bread with black coffee to survive. I wasn’t stretching and was trying to just pray my way out of it with forced gratitude.
“You fucking know better”, says the shadow of my masculine energy.
I did not embody that masculine last night, however. I held myself. I ran my hands over my arms and it gave me goosebumps. I squeezed my shoulders together and rocked myself while I suddenly began crying big alligator tears that fell directly from my eyelashes to the bed sheets I was facing. I felt the thuds of these heavy drops as they crashed from the height of my hunched posture. As my sinuses became too obstructed, I slowly calmed myself to a gentle sway, feeling grateful for my lungs and my breath.
I felt that familiar presence I normally have to go looking for in meditation. He watched me in my hysterical moment and he offered me comfort. He didn’t judge nor give me advice. He just held me, becoming a part of me.
Usually the logic is leading me because I allowed my underdeveloped inner feminine to lead me astray before. Giving her another chance and trusting her has proven to be a giant leap of faith (as it usually is). Last night, I let my divine inner femininity determine what I did with my evening. She showed me where I’ve gotten hung up in despair.
Feminine Secret
The Divine Feminine has a secret. She must keep it because there is no way to prove it and to discredit it is to lose it. A lot of our feminine collective is still afraid to share this for fear of being ridiculed. It is simply that:
Joy must be manifested from within through ritual and togetherness. It is not brought to us by being served, nor from sacrificing our own body. This is the lesson our inner masculine can learn from this physical realm. Serve the body, treat it well, and it will serve you well.
You must execute each decision with joy. You cannot sustain a life of joy with the mentality: “I’ll just do this to get to that”. You cannot fake it because then you’ll be hiding a secret. The shadow of the inner feminine is to be secretive, for fear of being judged. Every waking moment of existence should be experienced in joy.
Now here comes that masculine voice saying, “That’s just not possible” . Cool. Does that make you feel better? No? Okay so let’s play pretend that it is possible to always experience joy. A little math for your logical brain will tell you that, chances are: you’ll have more moments of joy and fewer moments without it.
In everything you do, do it with joy. Happy Solstice, you divine being!
