Emptiness
Lately, I have had for a constant companion an emotion for which I have no name. It defies easy description. I can’t even describe it well to myself, distilling my feelings into words and concepts. It’s easier to describe its effects than the emotion itself. Unlike other emotions which wane when examined too closely, it persists dancing seductively out of reach of my analytical mind. Even as I write this, I feel it.
I look at a coworker’s shirt, and the deep shades of blue conjure this emotion. I feel tempted to daydream in shades of blue and lose myself in the womb of my mind.
I lie sleeplessly in my bed next to my wife. I feel my stomach rising and falling in the slow rhythm of my breathing, the air flowing in and out of my lungs. I feel a knowing connection with my childhood self. I remember dreams and fantasies that occupied my mind when I was young.
I am ailing with a persistent cough and congestion, but I am content. A subtle, soft joy fills my lungs as I breathe.
My heart melts at the slightest provocation: the dimples in my daughter’s cheeks, my wife’s skin under my hand, a child’s song, the taste of my morning tea, the sun on my face.
The halls of my mind feel cleansed of the cobwebs and cruft of years of willful neglect. I feel pleasantly empty, like the scent of a kitchen floor that has just been mopped after months of procrastination or the clear view of newly washed windows. It feels like the lack of something that obscured my view.
I feel poised on the verge of… some unnameable, visionary place full of imagination, love, and joy. I feel like I am rediscovering something I forgot when I left childhood and got lost in my fears and my own notions of reality.
Tags: children, daydreams, dreams, happiness, Journal, joy, zen
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October 28, 2007 @ 11:49 am
You’ve captured how often feel these days. It’s a lightness that’s so much more brilliant than anything that I’ve ever felt before. Such a gorgeous feeling. It was this feeling that was part of my epiphany in the moment that I was deconverted. This heaviness fell off of my body (maybe the scientologists can relate to the _feeling_ of this) and I was just so free and light and clean.
Some days I feel guilty that I feel so good!
Lacey said,
October 28, 2007 @ 3:37 pm
So does part of your good feelings come from the cleaning we did this weekend?
October 28, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
pilgrimgirl,
I find it wonderful and fascinating that I’m not the only one who feels this way after deconverting. Some might label what I feel God or perhaps the Holy Spirit, but I’m content to leave it nameless. Any such label seems a shabby, shallow reflection of the truth and lends itself to a deep misunderstanding.
Lacey,
That depends on whether or not you’ll use that knowledge against me to justify more work.
Jason Richards said,
October 30, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
Jon,
Have you noticed what causes the Emptiness to collapse? (or perhaps to distract you from observing it?) and have you found a way to reliably reestablish it? Also how long can you maintain the connection?
October 31, 2007 @ 11:12 am
It seems that the triumvirate of fear, anger, and guilt are the biggest distractions. Anything that seeks to preserve my self rather than accepting that my self is temporary. The experience is pretty new to me, so I don’t have a reliable way to recall that mind state, and it seems to last for a few days.
November 2, 2007 @ 10:46 am
[...] Madonna’s Love Profusion just popped up on my playlist. I discovered that the balance between despair for knowing the truth clearly without illusion and the soft, loving gratitude to life portrayed in this song reflects a part of my unnamed mind state. [...]