(Written in November 2004)
\nWoke feeling bleak.\u00a0 Hard to get out of bed.\u00a0 Dizzy at first.\u00a0 Feeling very low in my heart.\u00a0 Thinking that death would be a relief, it\u2019s just too hard to live.\u00a0 And yet there\u2019s nothing particularly difficult right now except worry about Bella.\u00a0 Nothing I \u2018have to\u2019 do.\u00a0 But it\u2019s just the most ordinary things: shopping, fixing meals, cleaning house that are the hardest to do when I feel this bleak and tired and sick.\u00a0 Where is my courage?\u00a0 It helps when I hear David Whyte say that life IS difficult.<\/p>\n
Feeling very meaningless \u2014 why am I going on, cooking and eating?\u00a0 It\u2019s very bright outside, clear and sunny, snow sparkling.\u00a0 I think I find it less painful to feel bleak when it\u2019s bleak outside.\u00a0 The brightness frightens me \u2014 seems to be calling me out into the cold, out to fresh air and adventure, when all I want to do is crawl into a cave and hide.
\nI did have an image which felt helpful somehow \u2014 of myself as a shaman swimming down into the depths of water beneath the ice.\u00a0 So if one part of me is in this deep place I can\u2019t expect to do much more than stay alive up here on the surface.<\/p>\n
Although part of me is frantic that I\u2019m not making myself: clean the floor, walk the dog, work on art, and is afraid that I\u2019ll just go downhill, another part \u2014 the one that sees the shaman journeying under water \u2014 knows that this is something I\u2019m moving through.\u00a0 Another test, another threshold of something to be let go of, another incubation in darkness and silence \u2014 I haven\u2019t a clue what new thing might be getting ready to birth \u2014 but I think lying low and treating myself as an invalid is the way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Written in November 2004) Woke feeling bleak.\u00a0 Hard to get out of bed.\u00a0 Dizzy at first.\u00a0 Feeling very low in my heart.\u00a0 Thinking that death would be a relief, it\u2019s just too hard to live.\u00a0 And yet there\u2019s nothing particularly … Continue reading