Renee, I love this expansion on your last post. Ever since my experience of weeping that I shared with you in the comments of that post, my life has been continually shifting. The weeping opened something inside and set it free. I love what you stated here, "in weeping, we come to the immediacy of being touched by the relational fabric of being." So true, this is what I felt. Heartened by this web of life, new insights and a fuller awareness of connection became possible. The illusionary walls of trying to hold life together crumbled, there was and is a return to innocence. I love that you brought innocence into this writing. It truly is a gift to read your post as a mirror, a validation to my very profound experience. Thank you!
There is something very intimate about weeping, and it is very internal. There is crying and there is sobbing/weeping. The difference between the two is big for me. When I can truly let go and sob, where the tears are flowing, where my whole body is involved, and where I can hardly catch my breath; it feels so liberating and cleansing and restorative all at the same time. There really is nothing to compare it to. I feel most alive during that act of letting go into the fullness of sobbing. It can be triggered by sorrow, or by being touched by something so poignant, or by something extraordinarily beautiful. It is the world of feeling in its most primal expression. "Inside every tear is an inner answer to joy and delight, yearning and sorrow, wonder and awe, love and loss." I agree that the world of rationality often trumps the world of feeling in this modern world of ours; and the implications of that are staggering. Alexander Lowen, who founded what he called bioenergetics, used to induce weeping in himself at least once everyday. He said that all humanity has a well of grief that is always present, and to weep daily helps us to tap into that grief and to feel the weight and substance of it, and to release the energy of it. This helps us to stay deeply in touch with our internal, feeling world to balance all the time spent in the rational world we tend to inhabit. Here's a poem by Mark Nepo: "I'm not afraid of dying, but of losing those I love. I can't quite imagine a world without them. Like waking to a rip in the sky through which the sun might leave. The only thing that helps is to go below the noise. There, I listen to the same piece of music day after day. I play it over and over until the squirrel in my head stops chewing, and my heart admits it's tired of why. So many things show their beauty when we go quiet. So many truths are present when we look up from under our trouble. To fall below the world, while living in the world, makes us remember that the truth that waits under our opinions, is our home. So tell me, am I home? Are you home? When was the last time you looked up from under your trouble? When will the fugitive we hide inside finally accept that our self-worth was there all along? And what sort of rain will make the seed inside our heart grow?"
Before reading this, before I even graced the title - having it stored in my inbox for later reflection - I could feel a welling of tears wanting to come forth from the beauty and fear intermingled within my being - and I desired so to cry softly... quietly... a necessity in a space where crying is seen as an attack on those around you... "Why are you crying? Is it me? Am I the problem?"
And the first lines hit my center "I lie in bed and wait"... every morning is facing the challenge of my being, my body, my own self. As I reach my essence further and further into the world, it means my body has to make haste with me. It's a complex journey, to be twined with all the intense radiance my body is - allowed - to feel; at any given intensity.
When birdsong holds the beauty I desire, but breaks me open to the loss I will face - in having to dive inwards eternally - navigating the enraged coils of my own labyrinthian mind.body.
Even now, I do not cry - nor weep - even though I know I need it. The coils are too tight and wrought with the sapped icor keeping me together.
RENÉE, as always... Bless you and this own unravelling of your essence - in all the healing it is doing for you; know that is is being reflected upon deeply, substantially, and subliminally to all the liminality of the world. Especially to those wishing to be broken open to the weeping resting at the edge of One's Being.
Another exquisite offering. And my mind is weaving loops between this and @veronikabond’s recent post. You two are twin souls. (Though I bow humbly as I enter myself into the circle too, all three of us endeavoring to “involute and evolve” our understanding of darkness/brokenness/weeping as a necessary part of the relational (and inner-relational) fabric, not to be shunned or fixed, but embraced.
Wonderful writing Renee, I used to do trim carpentry, often working alone, freeing me to weep many days without embarrassment around hard assed construction comrades. I enjoyed the release yet mostly stopped after joking to myself, from the effects of years of insensitivity training. Rationalism is a maximizing strategy where more is always considered better. This is bad strategy as it prevents us from having a homeostatic relationship with reality. My strategy is to reduce reactive mind engagement by attempting to balance head and heart. The 'reveal' for me was to be shown or conclude that the spiritual and the material is the same thing. This provides a useful alternative to our dominant narrative, held by both orthodoxy and the Gnostic's, that maintains that the spiritual and the material are fundamentally different. Do we weep because this is truth that is buried so deeply?
Thank you Donna. You might be surprised about a good daily sob and how good that would feel. Think of all the effort we put into being so rational and suppressing our sobs.
‘Rational thought tears us from the fullness of being’, this is so true. It’s partly why we love being out in nature so much where there is little place for rationality.
I can attest to the fact that it is a rare baby that actually shed a tear. I worked in the Neonatal ICU for many years and even there in the most pain filled moments there are no tears from the babies. I learned well before the NICU to keep my tears inside and learned from the NICU and life to let them out. There was a time when you would only see tears when I was very angry. Now, I will cry at a touching movie or commercial or with joy or passion about a subject. As I move more from doing to being, the tears and the weeping are more free and they bring me home to myself and humanity. The parts of me that couldn’t cry and be vulnerable as a child have opened up, tears flowed and healing happened. What an amazing journey we are all on!
Dear Renee, what a beautiful reflection on weeping. For some reason it beings to mind grief and the expression of our love for another through that uncontrollable release of our emotions. A pouring out of love that we need not be ashamed of or try to hold back. For they will see us showing how much we love and miss them still. I have been learning an intimate relationship with releasing through tears and weeping. For someone who could not express her emotions it has become a private ritual. I even notice the way the tears fall and when it is necessary to accompany them with the sounds of sobbing I do. Other times I let the tears gently roll in a peaceful cascade.
Let it be a celebration of love, let it bring comfort, let it bring peace. Let us allow this natural way of healing be our medicine. Love Louise x
Renee, I love this expansion on your last post. Ever since my experience of weeping that I shared with you in the comments of that post, my life has been continually shifting. The weeping opened something inside and set it free. I love what you stated here, "in weeping, we come to the immediacy of being touched by the relational fabric of being." So true, this is what I felt. Heartened by this web of life, new insights and a fuller awareness of connection became possible. The illusionary walls of trying to hold life together crumbled, there was and is a return to innocence. I love that you brought innocence into this writing. It truly is a gift to read your post as a mirror, a validation to my very profound experience. Thank you!
There is something very intimate about weeping, and it is very internal. There is crying and there is sobbing/weeping. The difference between the two is big for me. When I can truly let go and sob, where the tears are flowing, where my whole body is involved, and where I can hardly catch my breath; it feels so liberating and cleansing and restorative all at the same time. There really is nothing to compare it to. I feel most alive during that act of letting go into the fullness of sobbing. It can be triggered by sorrow, or by being touched by something so poignant, or by something extraordinarily beautiful. It is the world of feeling in its most primal expression. "Inside every tear is an inner answer to joy and delight, yearning and sorrow, wonder and awe, love and loss." I agree that the world of rationality often trumps the world of feeling in this modern world of ours; and the implications of that are staggering. Alexander Lowen, who founded what he called bioenergetics, used to induce weeping in himself at least once everyday. He said that all humanity has a well of grief that is always present, and to weep daily helps us to tap into that grief and to feel the weight and substance of it, and to release the energy of it. This helps us to stay deeply in touch with our internal, feeling world to balance all the time spent in the rational world we tend to inhabit. Here's a poem by Mark Nepo: "I'm not afraid of dying, but of losing those I love. I can't quite imagine a world without them. Like waking to a rip in the sky through which the sun might leave. The only thing that helps is to go below the noise. There, I listen to the same piece of music day after day. I play it over and over until the squirrel in my head stops chewing, and my heart admits it's tired of why. So many things show their beauty when we go quiet. So many truths are present when we look up from under our trouble. To fall below the world, while living in the world, makes us remember that the truth that waits under our opinions, is our home. So tell me, am I home? Are you home? When was the last time you looked up from under your trouble? When will the fugitive we hide inside finally accept that our self-worth was there all along? And what sort of rain will make the seed inside our heart grow?"
Before reading this, before I even graced the title - having it stored in my inbox for later reflection - I could feel a welling of tears wanting to come forth from the beauty and fear intermingled within my being - and I desired so to cry softly... quietly... a necessity in a space where crying is seen as an attack on those around you... "Why are you crying? Is it me? Am I the problem?"
And the first lines hit my center "I lie in bed and wait"... every morning is facing the challenge of my being, my body, my own self. As I reach my essence further and further into the world, it means my body has to make haste with me. It's a complex journey, to be twined with all the intense radiance my body is - allowed - to feel; at any given intensity.
When birdsong holds the beauty I desire, but breaks me open to the loss I will face - in having to dive inwards eternally - navigating the enraged coils of my own labyrinthian mind.body.
Even now, I do not cry - nor weep - even though I know I need it. The coils are too tight and wrought with the sapped icor keeping me together.
RENÉE, as always... Bless you and this own unravelling of your essence - in all the healing it is doing for you; know that is is being reflected upon deeply, substantially, and subliminally to all the liminality of the world. Especially to those wishing to be broken open to the weeping resting at the edge of One's Being.
You are Blessed, and in turn Bless.
Gratitude and Gracefulness, wished upon.
For you.
Another exquisite offering. And my mind is weaving loops between this and @veronikabond’s recent post. You two are twin souls. (Though I bow humbly as I enter myself into the circle too, all three of us endeavoring to “involute and evolve” our understanding of darkness/brokenness/weeping as a necessary part of the relational (and inner-relational) fabric, not to be shunned or fixed, but embraced.
Wonderful writing Renee, I used to do trim carpentry, often working alone, freeing me to weep many days without embarrassment around hard assed construction comrades. I enjoyed the release yet mostly stopped after joking to myself, from the effects of years of insensitivity training. Rationalism is a maximizing strategy where more is always considered better. This is bad strategy as it prevents us from having a homeostatic relationship with reality. My strategy is to reduce reactive mind engagement by attempting to balance head and heart. The 'reveal' for me was to be shown or conclude that the spiritual and the material is the same thing. This provides a useful alternative to our dominant narrative, held by both orthodoxy and the Gnostic's, that maintains that the spiritual and the material are fundamentally different. Do we weep because this is truth that is buried so deeply?
Thank you Donna. You might be surprised about a good daily sob and how good that would feel. Think of all the effort we put into being so rational and suppressing our sobs.
‘Rational thought tears us from the fullness of being’, this is so true. It’s partly why we love being out in nature so much where there is little place for rationality.
I can attest to the fact that it is a rare baby that actually shed a tear. I worked in the Neonatal ICU for many years and even there in the most pain filled moments there are no tears from the babies. I learned well before the NICU to keep my tears inside and learned from the NICU and life to let them out. There was a time when you would only see tears when I was very angry. Now, I will cry at a touching movie or commercial or with joy or passion about a subject. As I move more from doing to being, the tears and the weeping are more free and they bring me home to myself and humanity. The parts of me that couldn’t cry and be vulnerable as a child have opened up, tears flowed and healing happened. What an amazing journey we are all on!
Dear Renee, what a beautiful reflection on weeping. For some reason it beings to mind grief and the expression of our love for another through that uncontrollable release of our emotions. A pouring out of love that we need not be ashamed of or try to hold back. For they will see us showing how much we love and miss them still. I have been learning an intimate relationship with releasing through tears and weeping. For someone who could not express her emotions it has become a private ritual. I even notice the way the tears fall and when it is necessary to accompany them with the sounds of sobbing I do. Other times I let the tears gently roll in a peaceful cascade.
Let it be a celebration of love, let it bring comfort, let it bring peace. Let us allow this natural way of healing be our medicine. Love Louise x