In my experience, whether into darkness or into light, there is always a seed—always—but my soil may not be in a condition for the seed to germinate. Years may pass before the seed is ready to open. And so in all my experiences there are hidden initiations waiting to show deeper and more powerful and more beautiful versions of what and who I think I am. My task is to keep turning my soil. Remain open-handed to whatever happens. Take a moment before responding. Let the experience of what is happening resonate through and so feel what else is in here that I never knew. My seeds may break open at any moment. Or I may miss the moment. I may stumble on for years. This has been my experience a good many days. I am desperate to feel the discomfort so as not to go dumb into that good night.
I recently remembered two main characters in Watership Down, the great fantasy novel by Richard Adams (Avon 1975). Hazek is a young buck rabbit in a large and well-organized warren. He is expected to do what he is told. Fiver is a runt-of-the-litter that is taken for crazy and not to be trusted. Only Hazel listens to him describe hysterical visions from his dreams. Hazel has experience that Fiver can foretell what is to come and his odd reactions to situations carry an underlying truth.
These two play back and forth in me to stabilize and destabilize, making me sometimes very uncomfortable, and yet with a little patience on my part the tension offers an opening into a deeper field. The hard feelings of the “runt” I take in, if possible. Can I bear disillusionment and fruitless anger, sadness and loss? Can I weave these untoward sensibilities into a deeper field of life?