“How are you?” a spiritual leader asks me.
“Oh, the last week has been a lot of feeling like I want to die, sobbing spontaneously on and off, barely getting out of bed and I not showering,” I say smiling slightly behind the phone.
After a sympathetic pause, she says, “Well, I hope you come out of that soon.”
My whole body rejects this as I spit it out like an irritated camel.
I get a flash of me at 17, the doctor handing over the prescription for anti-depressants.
Just as I threw that paper in the trash, I know that her truth regarding this is not my own. I will not reject this experience.
“Dear, depression,” I say with my hand on my heart as I hang up, “You are still welcome in this Guest House.”
This rejection of depression is yet another denial of darkness, being-ness, death and dying in an imbalanced world.
For me, depression doesn’t need to be combatted, cured, or gotten rid of. I know deep in my bones that when depression is given full expression and invitation as any other visitor in my guest house, it will be transmuted into LOVE.
Through my awareness, I make this choice consciously and that is where the powerful vulnerability lies.
What do I learn from this visitor?
Depression means Deep. Rest. It is a call to die. To lie down in the deep belly of the earth and surrender.
I surrender to the depths of the hopelessness, the loss, the unknown, the darkness.
An old way is dying and i must grieve and rest so that whatever the next iteration is can be birthed in authenticity, revealing Love. Only Love.
This is sacred work. I feel this individually and collectively.
Me as microcosm and We as macrocosm are navigating the huge shifts that are up right now and it is important to honour the process.
Deeply grieving. Deeply feeling. Allowing it to move and breath, creating spaciousness, rather than blocking up through suppression.
Like compost, taking time with it, turning it and giving it air allows for more fecund potential.
Depression. Deep. Rest. Inaction. Dying. Surrender.
So that the soil is rich for whatever is next to grow.
The Guest House by Rumi
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.