Thursday, March 22, 2012

shattering

Thoughts from this year's Baha'i Fast, March 2-20...


Fasting.
Fasting.

Fasting.

This morning I was looking for a quote to along with the pictures I've been taking every morning... the pictures I've been taking to set some kind of stage, to have some kind of baseline from which to address this time... to speak to a small corner of the world and to myself what is happening on my insides.  This leaped off the page:

"It is essentially a period of meditation and prayer, of spiritual recuperation, during which the believer must strive to make the necessary readjustments in his inner life, and to refresh and reinvigorate the spiritual forces latent in his soul. Its significance and purpose are, therefore, fundamentally spiritual in character."
-- Shoghi Effendi 

Every year I struggle... every year.  

Every year I never make it through the whole thing, end up breaking somewhere in the middle into shards the shape of myself that are then blown to the winds while I stand, grasping, gasping, looking for some kind of net... harrowed... dropping whatever was in my hands (or what was left of my hands) to try and pluck the shards from the air, assemble them into a neat pile, and systematically put myself back together... back together... back together...


Inevitably with pieces missing.


... and I realize then that this is just what was supposed to happen.  It's always what's supposed to happen.  This shattering, this scattering, the blowing of the wind all to remind me of what matters... what is salient... what is heavy and substantial and real and true and at the core and will keep me grounded... what will resist the blowing, the eventual shattering...


... and there is something that I love about articulating, even inarticulately, what this feels like.  What it feels like in the settling of the water after this yearly wave crashes over my life... 

1 comment:

HZ said...

I'm sure you know this quote below... But your sister and I were just discussing and your blog came up. Excited to be following it/you. Wonderful to meet you. Huge hugs. Your honesty is brave and moving.

Our Deepest Fear
by Marianne Williamson from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles (See note below about Nelson Mandela)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”