Dark Spaces: Finding Healing at the Start of Summer Juncture

For almost a week, I have been meditating on the darker spaces of myself.  It hasn't been particularly enjoyable, but it has been a necessary practice for me.  I have so much fear of those dark spaces. But each morning I take my meditation seat and I'm pulled into it.  The best way to describe that space is a cave.  It is a dark cave with this large growth inside of it. The growth had nearly taken over the cave and it was alive, pulsing, and rancid.  It contains everything that makes me unhappy about myself.  I am including a drawing of the closest approximation of that space and myself in meditation. My drawing is much lighter than in my experience of that space.  It is so dark that it takes time to get my bearings and understand my surroundings.  But once I was able to fine tune my sight, I spent my time in meditation touching and then scraping off the layers of soot and ick that just covered the entire.. whatever it was inside of me.  It was red and irritated and angry and hurting.  I spent so much time imagining myself cleaning what seemed like a large open infected wound, that I became obsessed with curing it and ridding myself of it.  I had the putrid stink all over me, but I kept staying focused on fixing this wound.  The ooze coming off of it was black. Some kind of viscous fluid. It was sticky and oily and didn't want to come off of my hands.  I did finally wipe them clean and started placing some sort of balm or salve on the entire wound.  

Day 1

The last several days of meditation have consisted of me placing this salve all over the wound and repeatedly.  I also kept cleaning it. I suddenly had some sort of scraping tool and kept trying to scrape off all of the shit that kept accumulating all over it.  I was obsessed with getting rid of all the stinky yucky stuff. 

It was in my meditation yesterday, though, that I realized that it wasn't about ridding myself of all of the shit. Something in that dark wound started talking to me.  It was telling me that this meditation exercise was not to encourage me to eliminate it from my unconscious.  It drew me here to learn to listen and accept this dark part of myself as a real and necessary part of me.  I realized that by scraping all that viscous fluid off, I kept opening the wound, making it more irritated and painful.  I was making it worse.  It was flaring up and I was no closer to making sense of this...whatever it is.  I could feel my shame flaring and that all I wanted to do was hide from everything. I didn't want people to see this gash. I didn't want them to see me make mistakes. I don't want to look stupid.  I don't want to be mean.  I want to be liked.  I want to be perfect.  To hell with vulnerability.  What does it get me? I could feel myself in that dark cave of my unconscious freaking out like a caged tiger.  I was not comfortable at all.  I could see how much I hide in the comfort of my victim stories (not to be confused with victories).  I stand up for things, but then I obsess and get upset and angry when my actions are not responded to the way I want.  So, then it gives me more ammunition to burrow deeper and pick at all those old wounds that haven't had time to scar within my unconscious.  I keep them awake and ready.  I don't allow myself to be okay with unfinished business, nor do I find joy in the small victories of my ability to speak my truth, to stay standing and resilient and clear that my actions were right, even if the results are not.  

Day 6

So I decided to draw another picture of myself and what I was seeing in my unconscious world after I sat in meditation this morning with this new revelation. I stopped trying to fix it and I sat with it.  I touched it.  I soothed it with my hands. It was a different sort of meditation.  I could relax in that space even if I didn't know exactly what I was touching. Even though it didn't feel very good. Even though it smelled awful.  I reminded myself that curiosity is not about curing. It's about understanding.  So, I sat with it.  I saw it as part of me.  And then something happened.  The growth didn't look as big.  It wasn't as red and irritated.  It was still dark and sooty, but it didn't feel so hot and aggravated.  I didn't feel so desperate to get out. Nor did I feel so desperate to control the healing process.

As much as I try to convince myself that I love the ugly parts of myself and that I don't want to hide those parts, I realized this week how much I am so attached to keeping that dark part of myself apart from any image I hold of myself. I also realized how alienating and exhausting it is to try to keep that part of myself in some separate hidden little corner of my unconscious.   I will continue to meditate on this space, because I know there is much learning and healing and acceptance still necessary for me.  I can see how much I hold back and how much I need to let go. If I want to tap into the deeper creative and loving parts of myself, I need to stay here and witness this part of myself. Although it is not something I long to do, I know it is the right time for me to stay in this.  This extended juncture is clearly calling me to the depths of myself and I need to actually take the time to listen.