the cave

when i journey and end up in a cave it is always for a great teaching...

 

the cave is the center of everything...the black hole which is in us...and in the earth...and in the universe...

 

in darkness dwells the lessons we hide from ourselves...it is where our creation and re-creation dwells...it is why we are taught to fear the dark by those who are weak and input their weakness into us...our alcoholic father perhaps...or an abused mother afraid of her own power...a crazy mother who put her crazy thoughts in your head...a father who saw his own children as competition for love from his wife?....so many ways you were made afraid of the dark...yet it is the darkness where we begin each great lesson...the lesson is life after all...

 

i embrace the darkness...

 

so often when i feel a great teaching calling me it is into the cave of darkness...where a fire is built and a lesson unfolds from the flapping and twisting flames...from the walls the shadowy figures leap and lunge...the shaman lifts herself from the deepest part of the darkness to come sit with me and guide me to my knowing...

 

last night i dreamed of the cave...it has been edging up in me for days...and now i know it is to be where i will live for many days and nights to come...creating new life from the nothing i have right now...unlearning patterns...as new patterns are formed on the cave walls...

 

at last i see i stayed too long in places i never should have been...where rejection was programmed into the environment of the situation...yet i stayed there as a catalyst or to stir the pot for others to get a chance to see their patterns...i understand this now...yet it was a waste of my time...people are unwilling to change and let go of ego...they are often so full of fear nothing short of a near death experience could shake them free...and often not even that will get them to let go...my mother will never "get it" for example...she dips even lower into her dysfunctions...no strength left in her to lift herself up from her own suffering...

 

all of it has left me empty...tired and undone...i sold my own life short so others might get their true selves aligned...and now i go to my cave and seek alignment for the life i am ready to create...i have given up enough and taken on enough and been attacked and attacked myself enough...now i am in there...in that comforting darkness...unafraid to look...for what is there to be afraid of but what is past...

 

i look and see...i understand and move into new ways which fit me now...this is all...to see into the darkness and watch for signs and listen to my guide...

 

i write out my dreams but here is what i wrote last night...not exactly what happened in the dream...for there was too much...this is what i wrote instead...

 

i dwell in the hidden realm of hollow boned earth...the cave...a place to sit or pass through...for travellers who move from time to no time and back again...prayers echo here...answering back to the sender like rolling thunder...what you give out is what is given back...sorrow matching sorrow...praise amplified as well...you build a fire to push back the darkness just enough to see the truth in it...and in the fire are the answers to unspoken questions...images leap up from flames and dance on the cave walls...messages from spirit...

 

this is what i wrote late last night...as the wind howled outside this cold new winter season night...as i wrapped myself up in a cocoon of blankets...

 

i realize i am in the cave today as well and will be for many days and nights to come...creating art...answering the darkness with courage and solitude...loving myself through it all...listening to my shaman guide as she shows me parts of my own dark cave i push away from but know i must face...and i am relieved...i know when i emerge i will be full of more knowing...understanding more...and stronger...i wont walk into places of dysfunction again...i will allow myself to be around those who are kind and good instead....

 

my old patterns are falling away even as i enter the cave...for to know is the first moment of deconstructing old useless patterns...

 

to know...to find the root cause...to let go of it...to see myself as i go to reach for old behaviors again...stop them...to get in the habit of healthier behaviors...this is how it is done...it may feel uncomfortable and even miserable at first...but if i get beyond those first bits of discomfort then i get to the easier path...

 

for now i am in this directionless place...it is not depression or sorrow...simply transition...for so much has fallen away or rotted to pieces...the hope of a loving relationship...any form of family...a belonging to something...it is all gone...the last embers of it passing away in the deep darkness of this cave...and yet there is in this emptiness a new form ready to be created...another me...one i will recognize...i didnt know this other one...she always felt foreign to me...willing to be punished and harmed to receive little bits of love and acceptance...it never felt like me even as i was experiencing the hurt...and soon i hope to understand in the darkness of this cave of creation...where are the roots of this and then i will remove it all and be re-created...

 

so i give myself these cave dwelling times...in this cave of creation...by the fire of my own hopes...as winters icy fingers strum along the window glass...as sirens snatch at the air...as cars rev and roar along the roads...as street lights stand like cyclopes in the primal nights...all of it blurs as the cave takes me in...i am the eager student once again...ready to understand...ready to learn more...