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THE WAY IS DARK

Rev. Hans Peter Meyer

• 5 min read
THE WAY IS DARK

Apprenticeship to Love: Chapter 301, October 11

  • Today's questions: What happens when you simply live —and love— to the very best of your abilities, your capacities? Can you trust this river, then? Can you trust yourself, then, to swim any distance, to navigate any tides & currents & shoals that come your way?
  • My practice today: 5am asanas and Lower Triangle meditation

TODAY'S MEDITATION

The river runs. This eddy, a spiral, a labyrinth, has turned. It feels like I am here again. But it is not the same place.

I am confused. The eddy is strong and the labyrinth is deep. At times overwhelming.

This I know: I am lost.

I know also there is no finding, except for myself, my breath, this moment of awareness. I know this too: there is a lifeline. A thread. It feels too fragile. Love.

It is a lifeline that I cannot fully grasp, or even see, except as it seems to move out of reach. But I feel it. And, sometimes, I trust it to lead me through.

...

The other day I woke early, but had already slept through my time of practice. We were to leave soon. The river, flowing.

I was sitting by the fire. With coffee. The cat beside me. The dogs still asleep, upstairs with my beloved. Today, I thought, today she flies away. I am turned around and around with my feelings, a confusion of thoughts. The labyrinth. A river flowing.

...

Today, I thought, she flies away. It will be a relief, I thought, when she goes. And, I knew, I will miss her. I am already mourning.

But this too is clear: I felt grateful. For our time together. Itself a profound sign of her trust. SO I was grateful for the gift of her trust, and also this testing. Because it truly is a testing.

...

How do I love this woman?

If you are a man reading this who thinks he loves a woman I invite you to sit with this question: How do you love this woman?

And: How do I love her, and especially all the ways in which I do not love her?

We —masculine-identified men— experience the women we love primarily as pleasure/pain. The pleasure of her surrender. The pain of her mystery and her unwillingness, her incapacity, to be as we want. Her resistance to our notions of what is needed. In a word, her wildness.

I once prayed, with another women in my arms, my breath in the back of her neck, my heart and mind torn between these poles of pleasure and pain, Help me to love this woman.

I am here again. Praying for guidance. Facing my seeming impotence to affect the change I desire: Help me to know how to love this woman, to unlock the radiance I know is but a breath away. Help me to know. And then, help me to be the husband to this radiance.

Help me to trust the tender thread that leads me through the labyrinth, the thread I follow, that my trusting breathes life into her desires, her trust, her passion for living, and, again, loving. Help me, for I am lost.

I am confused. Afraid. Grieving. Alone. Weak. Diminished. Reduced.

...

Her mystery and wildness is a siren song. It is subtle. It undoes me; undone I am revealed. And I ask myself, Am I the man I claim to be? Am I worthy of her mystery?

It is her song of silence and radiance that leads me through these self-doubts. This song of undoing is the golden thread of this labyrinth.

But, feeling lost and unsure, how do I trust this undoing? How do I trust myself to be enough, undone?

All the things I think I have accomplished are nothing compared to this difficulty that wrestles with me here, now, in this confusion.

...

I do love this life I've created. This beautiful place is dry, and as Deida says, I want and I require the moisture of her flow, her flowering, to nourish me.

...

We, masculine-identified men, we tend to reduce our experiences, generally, to what suits us. What aggravates us. The darkness and the light. And we strive to make the darkness known, light. We resist the wisdom of the mystery. It is "too much" for us, most of us, most of the time. We need mentors, elders, men who've been led through their own labyrinth, men who can teach us to trust the wisdom of confusion and of Her darkness. For it nourishes us as nothing we know can nourish us. It births us —She births us— to the be men we are capable of being.

It's late. I have no time left to be anything but the man this woman calls me to be. This thread is all I have to follow. The way is dark. Confusing. Hard. Uncomfortable.

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS

🌀Connection before direction. (John Talbot)

🌀Our prayer is that you are aware of your immortality throughout the course of your mortal physical life. (Guru Singh & Guruperkarma Kaur)

🌀The Conscious Warrior makes death an ally, using it to sharpen his present actions, future plans, and current state of being. (John Wineland , Precept 11)

🌀There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness. (Han Suyin)

🌀I am not quiet. (My beloved)

TODAY’S QUESTIONS

What happens when you simply live —and love— to the very best of your abilities, your capacities? What happens when you trust yourself in the dark and in the confusion?

TODAY'S SUGGESTED SHORT PRACTICE

My suggestions for your practice today, to breathe and feel the confusion of life —the tension, pressure, friction, and stress that makes everything possible— and then allowing this confusion to become more beautiful than you can possibly imagine.
Please read through first, then ...

  • Set two alarms, for times of the day when you have a five-10 minutes to become conscious of who and how you are in this day.
  • When the alarm sounds, wherever and however you are, take a few moments and ask yourself:
    • What happens when I simply live —and love— to the very best of my abilities, my capacities? Do I trust this river, its eddies and confusion, then? Do I trust myself, then, to swim any distance, to navigate any tides & currents & eddies that come my way?
    • Then, follow the short practice here:
      • Stand, or sit, or lay yourself down, and bring your attention to your body.
      • Feel the ground beneath you. Allow the earth to hold you with gravity. Feel how dense and heavy you are. Feel also how lightly you sit or stand or lay on the earth. Feel yourself between the pull of earth's gravity and the subtle but persistent pull of the sun, the stars.
      • Slow your breathing so that it is long and deep into your belly. Slow the inhale to a count of four or six. Slow your exhale to a count of six or eight or ten. Repeat three to five cycles of breathing, going a little slower with each cycle. Continuing to notice yourself held by the earth, raised by the sun and stars and sky above. Feel the subtle tension and pressure and friction and stress that allows you to be and rest and move in this body.
  • When you’re done, take another minute or two, breathing gently, slowly filling and emptying your belly.
  • Notice if your body-mind feels somehow changed. And whether you notice a change or not, be content with yourself, exactly as you are in this moment.
  • Continue with your day until the next alarm sounds, and repeat.

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