beautiful blue

Watching the weather. It's a very grey day today. The cottage is shrouded in fog. The temperatures have warmed and the smaller snowbanks are giving way to puddles. Living in this part of the country, different from Colorado, lends itself to watching the weather, rolling with the weather, letting go.

I noticed an internal fog this morning as I got up, moved into the morning rituals - filling the kettle, taking Ben out for his morning constitution, checking out the temperature and the feel of the air outside. I noticed my internal landscape was similarly shrouded with a sense of blue. Blue, to me, feels not exactly like sadness, not despair, nor discontent - just 'blue'.

With hot coffee and the morning blank pages before me I considered jumping into a dialogue with myself about what was arising, a discovery of the root of my blue. Nothing came. I could feel the texture and colour of my internal weight, I could touch its rhythm - slow, pulsing, methodical but I could find no source for its arrival to the horizon of my experience. In fact, my mind could only conjure a poignant sense of gratitude and yet this gratitude was cloaked in a melancholic blue.

I consider myself someone who enjoys the arrival of a 'new year' because it's a culturally accepted and recognized form of a collective birthday. I am not geared towards resolutions as much as I relish an obvious opportunity to get more clear on this human path I'm walking. One of my aspirations is to be better attuned to and aligned with my body. In talking with friends over the last week I've been exploring how much intelligence I have been discovering in the form of im-pulse; impulses are constantly arising through my body and directing me towards certain movements, awarenesses, and choices. I was born with impulses - I knew when I was hungry, felt clearly when I was tired, moved without self-consciousness when pulled to do so.

The years and life indeed impacted this knowingness. My impulses became confused by noise in myriad ways - I swallowed beliefs about what I needed to do to be lovable. I inhaled messages around the importance of avoiding certain outcomes (abandonment, destitution, aloneness, failure). I slowly, steadily shifted away from organismic wisdom and connection to the whole as I came to believe I was a fragile, separate, broken, and dependent self. This phenomenon is compounded by the collective belief system that Nature (human nature and the great outdoors) is to be managed rather than allowed to run free. Humanity prefers to see itself as separate from the whole because of our intellect and we mistrust our basic drives, viewing them as primal and lacking morality. Downright dangerous.

Perhaps collectively we are dissociated. I know that individually, I have been rather disconnected and dissociated and the potential I see that lies each moment in this body is to wake up.

And so this morning, I felt blue. And out of the habit of disliking uncomfortable emotions and not trusting my body, I felt compelled to clear out this weather pattern either by analyzing it and applying a treatment (hello psychotherapy) or by overriding it by forcing away the fog and greyness so that my natural light could shine through.

Taking a breath, I noticed a wave of sadness rising up. Tears flowed as I held my journal in my lap. It was simply a wave. I had named the feelings which were happening and they began to move. I didn't need a storyline to anchor my experience in so-called reality. I didn't need to fear that this internal weather pattern would wipe me out. I just needed to relax and trust and let go.

As I've alluded to a number of times in my entries, I'm torn by working in a field which pathologizes pain and seeks to remedy that which appears to be broken. Perhaps depression and anxiety and addiction are running rampant because we fear that we cannot tolerate the waves and so the suppression, distraction, and dissociation are compounding the force of energy - that which we do not embrace becomes our master. With a deeper connection to the rhythms of our physical selves and more faith in this innate intelligence that expresses itself through the body - through sound, through movement, through choices - wouldn't we be remarkable? And wouldn't this remarkable quality include the brilliance of all kinds of weather?

"How are you?"

"I'm blue."

"Oh, I'm sorry. What can I do?"

"See my beautiful blue."