Sometimes, I get restless.
I lose myself in the rush of everyday life. I forget to breathe. I forget what it’s all about. I play small.
Then it’s time to travel inwards. To get still and retreat to the sweet, safe darkness, until I hear my own inner wise voice again. To come back to myself. Find freedom again.
Release what is keeping me down. Could be a place, a person, a job, a belief…
I’m always scared when that happens, but I try not to fight the darkness, and embrace being alone for a while.
And investigate what’s happening there, in that black space. Carefully, slowly…
Then, over time, come out on the other end a stronger, truer me.
David Whyte, a poet and philosopher with a juicy Irish accent, who writes about the human experience, gave us a beautiful poem about this need to retreat from the outside world from time to time, to get stronger…
He says “the world was made to be free in”…
Now there’s a radical idea ! But that freedom takes bravery. A lot of bravery.
Can you find it within yourself ?
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Turn to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
_David Whyte
The House of Belonging
Many Rivers Press, 1998
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