Letting go of the pain.. dancing with the dark.

The paths through the forest of spiritual development wind and turn. There is no straight path in my experience. While we may cry, rage, and whine against this reality - it doesn't change it. We cannot predict where we will be at any stage of our development, and in the long run this is an essential piece of the process.

Letting go of the pain and frustration is a tough skill to learn. Everyone one of us has a bit of Scorpio in us, that dark part of bitter pain that acts as both a seed for change and a poison that infects some of our work. Scorpio is the sign of death and transformation, this energy is critical to spirtual evolution. Scorpios are known to remember pains or betrayals long after others have forgotten them. Though they aren't all this way, this general perspective represents a truth about humanity in general: we don't learn to dance with the dark very well. The gift of Scorpio energies is just that: they dance with the darkness.

By dancing I mean that Scorpio represents the edge of creation that is directly preceeded by destruction. In short, we die in this moment to become what we are in the next one. Too often this truth is ignored in our rush for enlightenment. We want the process to be one of divine bliss, unfolding in layer upon layer of orgasmic love that heals all wounds and proves to us in no uncertain terms that we are sacred. OK.. gimme a break, will you?

Dancing with the darkness involves letting the pain go, letting it do it's work and then letting it go. It involves going all the way INTO the pain and then letting go and evolving like a butterfly in chrysalis. We cannot be ALL things all the time, no matter how passionately we cling to that desire. The darkness is a part of us, the pain will come again and again. Holding onto the pain only eclipses the joy and the bliss that follows as our new self is born.

I dance with the darkness more and more these days. I embrace the gift of Scorpio and her loving kiss of transformation, even as I see how much more work I have to do. I am sometimes depressed and discouraged because I feel as though I have travelled far, and the road curves ahead so I cannot see how far I have to go.... but in the end it's not the destination - it's the journey that molds us into the blissful beings we hope to become.

The pain has taught me that love runs deeper than any pain can reach.
The pain has taught me that my truth is just as important as anyone else's and it must be heard.
The pain has taught me to protect myself and to value myself as a sacred being.
The pain has taught me that the limits of being human are as much a beautiful thing as the limits of being a sunrise, of being a water fall, or of being a whisp of smoke that rises into the sky.

The release has taught me hope and faith.
The release has taught me the ecstacy of letting go and flowing with the energies.
The release has taught me how loving the Gods and Goddesses can be when we commune with them through the release.

Fear nurses on pain, it lives and thrives on pain. It starves and dies in the moment when we release and are caught in the loving embrace of our own divine existence yet one more time.

Let go, dance with the darkness.. but not dance in the darkness.