the INVITATION

There is a liminal space within all of us between our external and internal worlds; a threshold that invites us into a fuller way of BE-ing. Our whole life is a prayer in answer to a greater calling about WHO we are and HOW we are meant to serve this world; the alignment of individual will with the will of the community and ultimately with the will of the Divine. When our outside living no longer aligns with our inside desires, a messenger is sent to harness our attention; a messenger that guides harmonizing human energies into a whole. Sadness, anger, grief, etc. emerge to alert us to something more; perhaps something missing. What invites us into BE-ing more alive?

Dark emotions are the invitation that calls us through the doorway to change. In a culture where we want to "be positive" and "be optimistic", we hurry across the other emotions that haven't been honored for their rightful place in our discernment and direction. While dark emotions can be uncomfortable to feel they are a necessary process in the discovery of our whole self. Exploring these "unwanted occurrences" may reveal dis-satisfaction, dis-ease, dis-comfort with our current situation in life and yet they are there to wake us up to a necessary change.

Please. I am not speaking of clinical depression or mental illness where chemical imbalances may be occurring on a physiological level. I am speaking to the normal undulations of emotion; the highs and lows of joy and sadness. A walk worth taking when it doesn't put self or others at risk. I might even suggest that in our culture we have villainized some of these emotions; ostracized them to the point of prescriptive care because we are not caring for ALL the emotions that show up in our life.

[the invitation]..."summons each of us to stand in the presence of our own mystery, and become more fully responsible for who we are in this journey we call life." ~James Hollis

photo credit: Bruce Osborn Valparaiso, Chile