Meet in Silent Truth

Love is a sacred brute

Dear you,

I think I can safely say that for the last couple of months, I’ve been going through a dark night of the soul. “Again?” you might think. Yes, again. And however many times it is necessary for my soul to grow and set itself free.

About 4 weeks ago, I felt a sudden intense pain in my left ovary. After a few medical mistakes and quite some overlooking, the pain escalated to unbearable levels in the following days, spread down my left leg and my worried partner rushed me to an emergency room in the public hospital in Portimao. It turned out I had an unsuspected ectopic pregnancy that was at risk of bursting the ovarian tube, amongst other reproductive system issues, so here I was on the operating table in agony.

When you arrive at the emergencies here in Portugal, you are not really a person. You are a body. And actually, I’m quite grateful for that, since it’s a matter of life and death. Though brutal in their treatment, the doctors were brilliant. Really humbling to see, despite their inhumane working hours, understaffed teams and the immense exhaustion on their face. The nurses too, trying their best to communicate in English, balancing care and strength, working for very little money, but with all their heart.

The whole experience and the hormonal roadshow afterwards left me confused, grateful but also empty and grieving to say the least. It rattled my relationship and all the plans we had for our life together, as we’ve started to discover that we don’t want the same things once we are faced with the reality of them.

It’s funny how life works - it brings the whole the shit show at once.

I can’t lie - it’s not easy to let go and surrender. And yet, it seems my life is all about lessons of surrender. Surrender to love and the inevitable loss that comes with it. Surrender of my desires to the will of something else. It feels like yet again, I am asked to let go of what I was holding on to on a personal level, and though it’s painful, I have to open my fist... And let go.

My clients in therapy often ask me if it gets easier with time. I’d say yes and no.

No, in the sense that the circumstances are what they are. The challenges, tests and tribulations continue regardless of whether we do the work on ourselves or not. As we work through our deep wounds, deeper ones are revealed. As we transform our personal shadow, the ancestral or collective one rises up to the surface for us to meet it. Perhaps there is no end to this process and it is not about it coming to an end. Perhaps the process itself is love in action, even if it doesn’t feel that way.

Yes, in the sense that slowly slowly, my resistance to what I’ve been given to live softens and I let go more easily, I let my heart break more readily, with more trust and less story of why and what and how and whose fault it is. Yes, in the sense that though I may tense up in the hardest moments, something in me remembers to release the grip quicker. Though I may again and again try to control things and hold on to what I feel I can’t live without, some kind of clarity comes to remind me that what is truly mine will not leave…and what has never been mine is already gone to begin with. Yes, in the sense that I don’t want life to be different anymore. I want it to be as it is. I trust that it is the medicine I need.

I know that many people are going through tremendous oppression, sickness, life threat, pain and hardship at the moment. It seems to be the collective theme at this time. For those who feel it, I wanted to share the following poem - it’s been my candle in the darkness.

Sacred Brute

Love is a sacred brute

she’ll break into any heart

more or less uninvited

and bring up every well hidden wound.

She’ll take your pacifiers one by one,

if she’s kind

or the whole bundle all at once,

if not.

She is imprudent, manner-less

a deity of wreckage

to every comfortable structure.

She does not care about maintaining you

anything like you were.

She is a vandal to every tidiness.

She opens

your well-stored inner boxes

and giddily loosens your collection

of rage and griplessness.

Her only intention?

To fully take off your mask

so God’s face can finally

shine through you.

From: Susceptible to Light by Chelan Harkin

A Journey Within: Autumn Yoga, Voice Work and Self-discovery Retreat in Portugal

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