Dance anyway...

Well, back again with this.  I could blather on about it--either in abstraction or in detail--but there's no real point.  I know that sounds nihilistic; honestly I don't mean it that way.  What I mean is that there's no point in me enumerating the whys and wherefores.  The main point is, I got my hopes up.  I really and truly felt that my life was being blessed.  That something wonderful fell in it, and that more wonderful things were going to happen as a result, but it didn't work out that way.  I suppose I could chalk this pain up to "not being in the moment", but frankly, that's for roshis, and I'm about as far away from roshidom as I am from the moon.  Make that Mars.  The moon's only a quarter-million miles from here.

The thing that hurts me the most about the whole thing is that I was really trying.

Actually, no.  What really hurts is the fact that the way I felt was real.  I'm more sure of it than I've ever been.  But that doesn't really matter when you can't see the other side of the equation.  My side may be a "1", but if I don't know the definition of "x", it stays a variable, and it's damn hard to have a working relationship with a variable.  Ask any equal sign.  They'll testify.

The other hard thing is that there was a time when part of it I was scared of.  It took a lot of hard thinking and meditation, but I saw that fear for what it was.  Just fear.  Merely fear.  Once I got past that, I was really surprised to find not only acceptance on the other side, but anticipation, hell even excitement over the thing I'd been fearing.  Then to have it all taken away in an instant just sort-of knocked the wind out of me.  But that's what happens when the rug gets pulled out from under your feet I suppose.  I don't believe it was done maliciously.  I really don't.  But its suddenness and unilateral-ness (no, I'm not sure that's a word, but I didn't think "unilaterality" was either) really has knocked me back.  And it hurts.  And it saddens me.  It is VERY challenging practice to be with this feeling.  Practice makes... well, frankly, it just makes for more practice.  That's not bad.  It's just what it is.  Frankly, practice is all I have.  It's all any of us have.  Sometimes I (allow myself to) forget that.

Sorry for not making much sense right now folks, at least to most of you.  I'll be okay.  I know I will.  But right now the hurt is louder than the music.  But you dance anyway.  As Shiva teaches, you either dance or you die...

Oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ...