My friend Kate has been periodically sending me excerpts of this manuscript she's working on. It's sparked a lot of thought for me on this idea of just being able to sit in our pain for awhile instead of scrambling for self-preservation or some medication to numb the pain.

So much of humanity (particularly American Western culture) spends time resisting pain and escaping it, but there's something about pain that is inherent in being human. I'm not talking about embracing pain in a masochistic way, but embracing it and allowing the dark night to encroach upon the soul and see what comes of that.

Kate wrote: "Everything in us strives for comfort- mind, body, heart but the spirit. ‘To die you must love’, ‘blessed are the broken hearted’ so on and so forth. The words of Christ go directly against the mind and heart. Christ leads us into extremely uncomfortable places, and I think most don’t follow.

But if we do, which can be very painful, then our new God-self appears out of our collective conscience. Or as Rilke says ‘something new emerges’."

Falling
12/16/08
-Mel

I beg the light to stop
Pouring down upon me
Take cover underground
I'm sinking softly

Caught in the salty tide
Fear and foam receding
Blackness all around
Seems natural for once

And this falling for now is fine by me
'cause this song I play for you is not for keeps

Faint and blurried vision
While I walk a tender line
And gravity is beautiful
When she's looking for a fight

This falling for now is fine by me
'cause this song I play for you is not for keeps
This falling out is the only way I see
So sing it back before it's lost on me

Sing it back, sing it back to me, love