It’s one of those moments where I feel like there’s a lot that I want to say, a lot that I have been feeling.
I’ve been wanting to switch the light back on for a long time. But it’s a little more than that. I’ve wanted to switch on this new light for a long time now. I felt that once this light was on, I was good.
But if I’m being honest, these past couple of months, Life has taught me that it takes care of me in a way that I didn’t expect, in a way that I didn’t know that Life can take care of you. See, I’ve been between two rooms - keeping one light switched off and trying to keep the other light on. But in the midst of it all, walking back and forth between these two room, I have found that Life, has been moving through me, through my heart, through my Soul, in Ways that was beyond these two rooms.
Life moved through me in such a way that it slowly made me a stranger to these two rooms, suddenly I was standing on the outside. Grace answered, so Quietly, and so Silently - that suddenly I woke up one day and I couldn’t navigate through my Life in ways that I had done previously. Grace stripped me of narratives and stories and perceptions and beliefs and emotions and feelings that just wasn’t me; from the inside out - I could feel the hollowness of it all; it felt more matter of fact than an emotional vacancy.
I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw another person entirely looking back at me. See, I realized that the person you were when you started dreaming, when you opened your heart to desiring your desires, as you move along life, moving closer and closer towards those dreams, those desires - you are no longer that person anymore. It seems obvious to me now, but I guess part of me just thought that the person who started it all would be able to reap the fruits of everything that she dared to dream. But more and more, I realized that I wasn’t her anymore. She was more of a memory than anything else. A memory that I kept trying to bring back to Life.
Maybe sometimes, letting go is a little harder than I thought. I can say things like - in Life you can let go of something good, because It gets even better, or that the person that I was paved the Way for everything that I am now and everything that my Life is now, or that part of Life’s adventure is exploring its depths and when you dream - you ultimately become more of Its Depths to explore.
I can say all of these things that are probably true but it doesn’t take the sting away from the ways that I’ve been missing her, the ways that I’ve been letting Her go, the ways that it hurt me when She became a memory to me and I didn’t even realize it.
I’ve missed Her Smile. I’ve missed Her Sweet smile. I miss that pure unconditional and ridiculous joy in Her Heart. I am in awe of the strength she exuded in all her softness. I miss her lightness. I miss how she was everything to herself and didn’t know anything else. I’ve been missing Her without even realizing it - I’ve been in that room trying to switch that light back on when She, herself left, left that room; even if the lights turned back on, She wouldn’t be there … not anymore.
And I get it, I know that I have a new Smile; I know that I’ll have new ridiculous Joys in my Heart. I know that I’ll have a new Light to me.
But She taught me so much and She loved me so much. She loved me so much - so tenderly and so delicately. She made me into everything that I am - the reason that I can sit and express myself so easily now, so naturally, so beautifully; the reason that I feel my passions so alive inside of me that my very passions have become a beautiful sanctuary for me.
And … I think … I know that She’d want me to try out that new smile. I know that She’d want me to open my heart to those new joys. She’d skip the trying out of that new smile and just completely own it. She’d skip the opening of my heart and just go straight to feeling all these joys light me up from the inside out. I guess that after all, in her own way, She’ll always be a part of me but She’d never let me get away from everything that I’ve wanted for myself and for my life. She’d never let herself get in the way of me fully - wholly and solely (holy and souly) ALIVE in the COMPLETE NEWNESS of everything that I am.
But for today, I’m okay with missing Her.
Lately, I’ve felt something within myself quietly, that continues to be of interest to me.
As I have lived, Life has made me more whole - as though it has added a new complete-ness to my entirety. It’s as though I am an entirely new person - a different soul even.
Sometimes, I walk in the direct brilliance of the Sun, wanting it to cast more and more of its Rays upon me - for I can feel all the Ways it is energizing me from the inside out. The Brilliance of the Sun has been a warm familiarity to me; my Personal Heaven.
Lately, I feel less at home in this brilliance and more at ease in The Shade; more at ease in The Night.
Some part of me felt that I was always meant to be in the brilliance of the Sun but somewhere along the way - the brilliance turned into a scorching thing that stung me. But, I’ve transformed so many times, endlessly experiencing consistent expansions, that from the inside out, I was feeling the same clarity again and again and again - that One Self is naturally untethered; the Soul was innately untethered. Even the very thing, that can feel the most familiar, the most permanent in such a neutral way, I am not tethered to It and it shows me again and again and again, that I am not tethered to It.
I experienced the brilliance of the Sun, I lived in a Personal Heaven of Mine, and yet I was not tethered to It - it was not my identity. Even after experiencing it for years - still I am not tethered to It - it was not my identity. It makes divine sense to me - after experiencing so many diverse energies of clarity; after experiencing myself immersed in an ocean of my soul and feeling when it was time to move on - to swim in new waters; it makes divine sense to me that I can experience with such depth the Clarity of An Untethered Soul. For the Untethered Soul is Tethered to the Absolute. The Untethered Soul finds adventure in experiencing ItSelf alive in many different ways but innately knows that it is Tethered to the Absolute. And even so, the experiencing of the Ways in which my Soul is Tethered to the Absolute is diverse.
Lately, I feel less at home in this brilliance and more at ease in The Shade; more at ease in The Night.
And even so, it took me a while to welcome; to acknowledge; to accept this ease that I was feeling. Part of me kept waiting to feel at Home in the Sun again and slowly I started admitting to myself, how connected I felt to myself in these Nights; in these Dark Nights. Everything felt different but I felt so intimately connected to myself; to my Heart. I felt a new Clarity repeating itself to me again and again and again - that I could not deny any part of myself; that I could not deny any thing that I was feeling inside my Heart; that one thing was not overshadowing another. I felt it again and again till I felt that I was understanding my self more deeply in a way that brought me closer to myself. The darkness was not cold, you know, it’s warm and comforting. Maybe, I held a Cold No in my heart for my darkness, but the more I met it - it felt like a Normal Yes, that my darkness was comfortable and at ease with itself. My darkness felt normal; it felt natural; it felt beauty-full.
See, I don’t think the Brilliance of the Sun can Soothe the Darkness of the Night. Perhaps, that’s why the Sun started to feel Scorching at times. The Darkness knows the warmth that it emanates to soothe and comfort itself, gently. And even so, perhaps the Darkness sees no flaws in itself. Perhaps, the Brilliance of the Sun simply doesn’t belong in the Darkness of the Night. Perhaps that Darkness of the Night has no need for the Brilliance of the Sun. Perhaps they are already at Home; in their own sanctuaries.
Today, I feel things changing again … I find myself already missing the Darkness even though I feel myself still in it. I feel myself already missing all these experiences that I have had.
When I was in the Light of my Days - I would feel a burst of clarity that I felt I could spend weeks, months exploring, but before the day would end, I would feel the energy of another world of clarity coming through and I would have to give in to it. It was like giving in to a Unique Infinite of my Soul. It was constantly telling me You are so much, You are everything, You are beyond everything. It naturally trained me to be present and experience those bursts of clarity because I knew that I would soon move on to another.
In the Darkness of my Nights - I’ve had a similar experience but it was unique still. Part of me kept saying, ok, enough of this, we can’t go too deep into this. I have to focus on finding the Path where the Sun shines again but when days and weeks and months pass by, you develop a ‘forced curiosity’ to explore where you are, because it doesn’t seem like you’re going anywhere, anytime soon. In the Brilliance of my Sun - I felt nurtured by the Heavens; I felt held in the Arms of the Heavens; In the Darkness of my Nights - I felt comforted by Life; It never denied my Heart and everything that it was feeling, even if I, myself denied it. And even then, I only denied It because I didn’t know that I could accept It.
And even then, I only denied It because I didn’t know that I could accept It. And that’s it, that sentence is the main theme that I’ve been experiencing - And even then, I only denied It because I didn’t know that I could accept It. I knew there was something there for me because in each moment I accepted, I felt both a sense of relief and a quiet relief. It was more than a sense of relief - I was saying ok to parts of me that I said no too prior, I was saying ok again and again, I was saying yes and yes and yes to those parts of my heart that I used to deny. Ultimately, it’s made me feel more comfortable in my skin. It’s made me feel less alone and more connected.
The Clarity never ceased pouring through me - it changed - its intensity, its depth, its colors and it was completely unexpected for me because I got so attached to a narrative. And even so, I feel that in Life, to be all in, in who you are, in live-ing, you have to be attached to your personal narratives, but throughout all the different and unexpected phases of Life, you naturally outgrow those narratives and suddenly you don’t even realize that narrative isn’t telling your story anymore. And at times, you can’t even hear the new narrative, the voice is still much too quiet because it is very unfamiliar and we’re not keen to quickly lend ear to strange new voices. But nonetheless, the narrative changes, the old voice becomes more and more faint. We try hard to listen for it - like listening to old tapes and records, but it’s not the actual voice, it’s not the same. And then, we start listening for a new voice, something, something that feels like yourself again, and even so we can’t quite hear it because we’re still trying to see ourselves in old reflections. Nonetheless, the new narrative is telling the Story now, and perhaps it’s even telling You, how You can hear it, it’s teaching you how to hear it directly from inside your heart. And suddenly, right there, inside of Your Heart, you’re finding Familiarity in Unfamiliarity and at first you deny it. But, you’ve been out in the cold for too long, out of the loop in your own god damn story for too long, that you warm up to a new acceptance. And that’s when you feel like you’re on to something - you’re on your way; from hearing the Story; from listening to the Voice; to it feeling more and more like it’s just Your Voice; like it’s just Your Heart; and soon - It’s You telling Your Story straight from Your Heart!
And when you’re telling your story straight from your Heart - you’re writing new sentences, new chapters. You’re flowing. It’s been a minute since you’ve written new sentences and new paragraphs and new chapters, that you don’t quite pause to re-read yesterday’s sentences like you used to. For now, You just want too; You just need to keep writing; You just need to keep writing your story, so that you can live it. You’re not waiting to get to the next chapter or to finish writing because you’re not writing a book. You’re writing the Story that you’re live-ing. You are alive in each word, in each sentence. Each paragraph of Life just full of You - whether you’re walking in the Brilliance of the Sun or resting in the Solace of the Darkness of the Nights; You are there alive in each word of Your Story!
You learnt that when you deny parts of your heart; parts of yourself; you leave spaces empty in your story. But even so, you’ve added a rich narrative to your story - by walking yourself from denial to acceptance, You not only have more stories to tell but each story becomes even more full, even more complete. There is more of you to experience - not just bits and pieces; not just a little bit here and a little bit there - Just an ALL-INCLUSIVE experiencing of YOU!
Written by: Chelsea Avasa Khan
