Love Note #11: Fall Open, Right Here
Dear Heart,
The approaching winter solstice calls us down into the potent depths of darkness for that holy moment when the longest night holds all of creation in its vast embrace. This sacred darkness invites us to sink beneath our habitual activity into the depths of our being. Yet so often, we resist this call downward. Like children afraid of the dark, we can keep all the lights blazing, filling every moment with motion and noise, the sweet benevolence that lives in the depths forgotten.
We live in a culture that is yang-dominant, and in true yang fashion, we've been given one tool–diagnose and solve it, get it done. Even with spirituality, we can chase and strive: read, read, read, meditate, meditate, get there, get to some future salvation. Yet sinking, softening, resting, and unraveling is of great value–surrender, the doorway to liberation, is actually a yin process. We're not going out forward in time toward a destination called awakening–we're learning how to fall open right here, as it is.
In a world running on overdrive, we can unwittingly reject the dark because we've been conditioned to believe that safety and survival come through control, through doing, through yang. Many of us carry a quiet terror around surrendering control, feeling helpless, being in the unknown. This terror is fundamental to the ego structure, holding itself together and treading water above the abyss.
It’s common to enact this terror of the dark, of the downward pull of yin, in our spirituality—ever-chasing our ideals of divine perfection, while stepping on the face of the Holy Now to get “there.” Forgotten then is the thunderous ground of dark being, the wellspring of life, and the gentle pull of yin that calls us down into it—the primal force that dissolves everything back to the essential.
As a collective, we’ve lost touch with the profound intelligence of these dark passages. When we're plunged into spiritual deconstruction, uncertainty, and not knowing, our first response is often panic—we can think something's gone terribly wrong. We can resist most vehemently the force that has the power to save us. We don't recognize that this darkness is actually the Holy working on us, composting what's false so something real can emerge.
I invite you to imagine yourself held in the vast womb of a dark winter night. Let your body soften one muscle at a time into its sweet embrace. Let the quiet gentle you, let your breath slow. Let your belly be fat, your face droop, feeling the pull of gravity on each cell of your body. Nothing to do, nothing to figure out, nowhere to go. Float in the gap between here and there, slipping into this eternal moment. Let attention move around the felt sense of the body, inviting it soft, having mercy for the places where the body grips, having mercy for the remnants of the engine of "do, do, do."
As we surrender, the circulatory system of spiritual energy returns, weaving through our bodies into the ground, into the sky, into the trees, through us, into our children, into our lovers. We breathe in a sea of vibration and allow the deep wisdom of the universe to move through us. In the eternal moment, there's time for each timid or tender part of you to unfurl and unfold in loving space.
When we finally surrender to yin, when we allow ourselves to be pulled down and in, beneath our strategies and structures, beneath our careful plans and cultivated identities, something miraculous can happen. As we learn to rest in the ground of being, great strength can start to emerge in us. Not the brittle strength of willpower and control, but the supple strength of a tree with deep roots, the unstoppable strength of water wearing away stone.
Our bodies begin to return to the whole, and true power emerges—not the power-over of false yang, but the shared power of life. We discover that living from this deep ground brings forth a different kind of movement. Like a wave rising naturally from the ocean, our actions begin to flow from the organic integrity of life rather than fear or striving. The small, frightened, willful actions we've been left with are replaced by a deep wisdom moving through us. We become like nature herself–able to rest deeply and express bold action, able to yield completely, while also being able to stand our ground, able to be utterly tender while also being unshakably strong.
At life's end, as our strength ebbs and the world fades, we return to this great darkness–the darkness of earth, the darkness of formlessness, the darkness of deep rest and peace. Darkness is not our enemy. Darkness is not inherently frightening. Darkness is the feminine aspect of the Holy, holding us like the sweetest lap, as benevolence. And from this darkness, as surely as the sun will begin its journey back to us after the solstice, what is truly yours will emerge, in its own perfect timing.
Our world is craving the dark wisdom of yin–our bodies are craving it, our lovers are craving it, and our children are craving it. Yet we keep forcing ourselves back into the harsh light of doing and striving, terrified of the sweet dissolution that would actually bring us home to ourselves. Rest, whispers the dark. Sink and soften, whispers the dark. Let me hold you in the vast dark heart of the Holy.
If you feel called to rest into these depths, you might listen to this free guided meditation, Solstice Soothie, For one sweet hour, you can sink into the nurturing quiet of your own being, opening to the nourishment found there.
Floating with you in the sweet darkness of the season,
Jeannie
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