Earth to Ephemera

…without guilt, which is also an art. -Margaret Atwood

As I welcome my 28th year, I reflect on what has come to pass and attribute an overwhelming quality of wholeness to this cycle. Not to be mistaken for goodness, though goodness is still abundantly present and, in fact, nullified if there is no bad. It’s just that I feel my pendulum has swung far wider than I knew possible and it has taken some time to acclimate.

I have proven myself stronger than I believed myself to be, and I have reinforced that I am not some wallowing thing in need of saving; rather, I am the one capable of and sent to save myself. Alone, I have wept to the point of dehydration* and stayed up waayyyy too late, dreading the beginning of the next day, painfully aware that I have been assigned the Sisyphean task of sifting through my ever-permeating emotions with each new sunrise, for the rest of my earthly existence…

With a swing of my pendulum in the opposite direction, I have laughed myself into pure etheric euphoria, with girls near and dear to me, while dancing under the light of the early morning desert moon. I have been riddled with fear of disappointing others and still said the hard thing anyway, further solidifying confidence and trust in myself, and increasing my bandwidth for uncomfortability.

I stumbled upon community and sank into the warm embrace of reciprocity and soul-expanding sisterhood. I learned to sit with it, to find stillness in the awareness of my body, in the feeling of breathing into my breast and surrendering to the reality that is here before me. More than ever, I have become increasingly aware of the primordial balance that is woven into life’s rich tapestry. And I am reminded of a surah (chapter) from the Quran:

Al-Inshirah / The Expansion

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

Have We not expanded your chest,

and removed from you the burden

which weighed down your back,

and elevated your remembrance?

Surely with difficulty comes ease;

Surely with difficulty comes ease.

So, when you have been emptied (of your hardship), strive onward (in devotion)

And to your Sustainer, turn with longing.

~

I love the overt duality present in this surah and the reminder of universal balance; that everything, good or bad, comes to an end eventually. The world is constantly turning over itself, expanding, contracting, breathing in and out as a collective living being. The sum of all of humanity’s deeds has created our present reality, and though rife with calamity, injustice, and maddening discrepancy, it can’t hurt anymore than it already does to believe that there will be peace when the pendulum swings and balance is restored in favor of heart-opening expansion. I am also reminded of a podcast episode I listened to last year, Sufi Heart with Omid Safi:

Notes from Ep. 27 – The Rythm of Expansion and Contraction

Expansion and Contraction come in tandem like an ocean wave washing onto shore, then receding back to its watery depths. Contraction hurts – it’s the dark night of the soul. Aching. Suffering. A reminder that the life of this world includes pain.

Fitting, for when we came into this world, the person closest to us (our mother) was crying…and then they laughed with joy! Contraction (literally). Expansion. And when we are done here, we want to be laughing, despite the pain of the process, while those closest to us will be crying as Heaven’s gate closes behind us.

Contraction is what invites expansion. Expansion is joy, our hearts growing bigger, and the goal of expansion is to see and move in sync with the rhythm of the world, so that when hardship comes in life, when your heart aches and breaks, you also see that as part of the spiritual path.

A bright light, no matter how dazzling, nourishing, or warm, casts an equally large, looming, chilling shadow. It wouldn’t be betrayal if it didn’t come from someone closest to us. The absence of something is also a presence and can actually be a more deeply felt presence than the thing itself.

My heart, the thing I love the most about me, also causes an immense amount of suffering – a Divinely ordained vessel for both ecstasy and agony. My body, both altar and sacrifice, my soul, that of the saint and the sinner, my mind, curious like a child yet growing wiser and more discerning each day, all amalgamated into the wholeness of a very complete human experience.

This year, I will embrace this wholeness. I will be confounding in my complexity. I will not fret over being misunderstood or misrepresented; in fact, I will lean into it. Most of all, I will be unabashedly, brazenly, madly, successfully disappointing. ❤

ECSTASY & AGONY:

Ecstasy:

-Being misunderstood

-Sitting with it

-Eating as remembrance

-Little specks of mysticism found in the mundane (*thoughtful words from Isabella U.)

-Reclamation

-Actively advocating for myself

-Disappointing others

~

Agony:

-Making them understand

-Running from it

-Eating as a way to forget

-A lacking sense of wonder

-Abandonment

-Seething in silence

-Disappointing myself

Love always,

Dom

P.S. I’m not sure what’s up with all the animals in this post. I wasn’t intending to make it a theme, but they just fit. xoxo

~~~

*The reason your head hurts when you’re dehydrated is because your brain is literally shrinking away from your skull due to lack of fluid, causing tension/pain….ewww makes me want to conserve my tears and drink more water. 😉