David Whyte's well of grief can be compared to a Black Hole in
space but it's deep within many who live in fear ~ but at its center is a point
of convergence ~ a state of consciousness that lies beyond time and space ~ a Unified Field of
love and soul consciousness whose principle property is the urge to unite ~ or
as Longfellow once wrote ~ the
thread of all sustaining beauty that runs through all and doth all unite: Allen
L Roland, Ph.D
It's
not surprising that our lives are so inextricably bound with archetypal images
of terror which we then project onto the world around us. For our entry into
life is a traumatic passage through a black tunnel of fear ~ an experience of
being inescapably drawn into and swallowed by a terrifying black hole that
pulls us into another world !
Picture
yourself for a moment being drawn into a black hole in space and
helplessly crushed by a force far greater than yourself ~ would it feel
something like this?
"An
intransigent force ~ wild and out of control ~
has
gripped the infant.
A
blind force that hammers at it and impels it
downward ~
passageway;
the passage, a tunnel.
With
its heart bursting. the infant sinks into the hell.
Its
fear is without limit …
The
whole world bursts open.
No
more tunnel, no prison, no monster.
The
child is born."
Birth
and death both represent archetypal passages from one state, or world, to
another ~ and are therefore universally apt metaphors for spiritual and
psychological transformation ~ as Elizabeth Kubler Ross shared in a People
Magazine interview in 1975.
The
instant I fully surrendered to being crushed, I discovered a fearless hidden source of strength or a Unified Field of soul consciousness
guiding me through my fear and over to the "other side."
2.
Anger ~ I
can't stay in control and manipulate things any more ~ it's not working and
making me mad.
3.
Bargaining ~ I'll
hang on to something so I won't get out of control and get in touch with the
unknown and all those scary feelings deep inside me.
4.
Depression ~ Why
am I feeling so sad, and it seems to go so deep. If only I could get out of
this pit of despair ~ this black hole within myself.
5.
Acceptance and connection ~ I'm feeling sad and it seems so familiar and
goes back so far ~ I can't deny these feelings any longer and now I'm
connecting them to events in my childhood ~ it's all beginning to make sense.
STAGE 5 IS THE EVENT HORIZON OF EGO DEATH
6.
Surrender ~ I'm
completely
letting
go and surrendering to the moment ~ what is this joy and excitement I'm feeling
beneath the sadness ~ and it doesn't have anything to do with someone else ~
there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
7.
Celebration ~ I'm
finally beginning to trust my deepest feelings and a growing sense that
everything is going to be all right.
8.
Service ~ My
heart is open, I'm coming from gratefulness and I'm seeing through different
eyes and I'm also seeing that I have a part to play in this loving plan by just
being myself ~ my self-respect is my guide.
It
is the ego and our fears that peel away, like
the layers of an onion skin, when we fully surrender to love and let go through
this experience of ego death ~ for the ego was always meant to be shed.
As
such, the more we surrender to and trust our deepest feelings, the more
powerful and urgent becomes the pull from within. And when we do
this, we eventually come out on the "other side" and into a
new life. a new way of being for we are indeed seeing
through different eyes and our self-respect
is once again our guide.
Similarly,
near-death experiences report a light at the end of a dark tunnel, while our
birth through the "dark tunnel" of the womb delivers us to the light
of this world
Dr.
Eben Alexander, in his bestselling book Proof of Heaven writes about his near
death experience and says the same thing ~ in essence, it’s
all about love;
Proof
of Heaven, p. 71 ~ “If I had to boil this entire message
down to one sentence, it would run this way: "You are loved.”
And if I had to boil it down further, to just one word, it would (of
course) be simply: Love. Love is without doubt, the basis of
everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love, but the
day-to-day kind that everyone knows – the kind of love we feel when we look
at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest
and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but
unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly
glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that
exists or that ever will exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of
who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody
it in all of their actions. Not much of a scientific insight?
Well, I beg to differ. I’m back from that place, and nothing could
convince me that this is not only the single most important scientific truth as
well.” See 7 minute video ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AGNnOk6dhA
David Whyte's Well of Grief is the perfect poem for describing
this transition ~
Those who will not
slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief
the still surface on the well of grief
turning downward
through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe
to the place we cannot breathe
will never know the
source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the
darkness glimmering
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for something else.
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for something else.
~ David
Whyte
from Where Many Rivers Meet
©2007 Many Rivers Press
from Where Many Rivers Meet
©2007 Many Rivers Press
And finally Derek Walcott's poem love after love offers
the perfect antidote ~ Feast on your Life.
The
time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit, Feast on your life.
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit, Feast on your life.
Elizabeth
Kubler Ross is correct when she wrote ” Death may be viewed as the
curtain between the existence we are conscious of and one that is hidden from
us until we raise the curtain .“
We can
raise that curtain now if we stop being controlled by fear and begin to trust
the love and the spring of joy that lies deepest within ourselves.
Teilhard de Chardin
wrote on the last page of his personal journal three days before his death ~ "The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death"
And
in the Activation of Human Energy Teilhard wrote ~ "But how much
more comforting and 'electrifying' for our efforts would it not be if some
signal or some sign, some summons or some echo, should come to us from beyond
death and give us positive assurance that some center of convergence does
really exist ahead of us"
The NDE signs are
numerous and obvious but the summons is calling all of us from within ~ so I am suggesting and demonstrating in my work that
at the end of that black hole of despair within ourselves, we also reach a
point of singularity, where all notions of time and space break down and we
become one with the Unified Field of love and a joyful state of soul consciousness
~ and only our fear of death and the unknown stands
in the way
Beneath the well of grief is indeed a spring of Joy ~ if
we have the courage to drink from its cold and clear water.
Allen
L Roland, Ph.D
Heart centered spiritual consultant and advisor Allen L Roland can be contacted at allen@allenroland.com Allen is also a lecturer and writer who shares a weekly political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com. He is also featured columnist on Veterans Today and guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
“You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.” ~ Aberjhani, Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black
ReplyDelete