Auroras grace the sky with their gorgeous green swaths of color, splashed with blood red perfection above. Particles collide high in the atmosphere and a bath of brilliance brightens the sky. At least, that what’s the aurora tracking website says. That’s what photos show from other parts of the country, other parts of the state. Here, I gaze up at clouds. Here I see snow lightly illuminated in the always-too-bright streetlights. There’s beauty there, too, of course. But my heart isn’t open for it just now.
Sometimes I get sick of this sadness. Why do you cling? Has it been here all year? It wrapped me tight the entire spring semester of 2025. Then the warmth of the summer, the freedom, days reading and hiking and swimming, short sleeves and my own schedule. My spirit slowly soared, lifting from the murky shadows of the winter and spring. It felt freeing. Joy could pierce my boundaries once again. I felt connected to my partner again, to my son.
Then the fall semester struck. A sudden collision with working life; meetings and syllabi and planning; then classes began and the full blown schedule plowed into me. It was shocking, at first, and I mourned the loss of the glorious summer. And for awhile, my spirit held. Or so I thought. I found a groove and it didn’t seem so bad this time around, this thing called work.
Yet the heart slowly closed. Imperceptible at first. All seemed well. But the grind, day after day, building monotony, long days at the computer, teaching topics long since stale. I found a groove all right – a deeply worn path, with high walls that I couldn’t see over. At first I went out for hikes. And then I stopped doing that. Couldn’t bother to muster the enthusiasm. Heart slowing down, staying slow. Blood stagnating. Pooling and pouting. Temper teetering, fuse flames, with fitzs and spurts.
And tonight – this sadness. I feel it. Oh I feel it. And sometimes I get sick of this sadness. I want to throw my hands up. I have this wonderful spiritual teacher in my life, I have my own designs of teaching one day, and yet sadness persists. Don’t the teachings stick? Does the meditation do nothing? Is a calm, quiet body just as sad as an active body? Why won’t this change? What will it take?
Drawn to my teacher. Drawn to Tantra. Enamored by the teachings. Called by the Goddess. Chanting mantras in my head throughout the day. Reading, studying, sitting, listening, sitting more, making the time and space for meditation in my life beyond what I’d ever done before. Same result? Some days I wonder if anything has changed.
I call to the Goddess, or God, or whoever. Grant thy Grace, lift the veil in front of my eyes. What will it take? It’s not me; I couldn’t get this far on my own. I’ve been called to this work. So they say. The grace has gotten me this far. But it still feels so far from a true opening in my heart. I’m sitting and visualizing and chanting…and being sad.
Allow the sadness to be. So they say. Well damn it, what if I’m tired of this sadness! What does it bring? A disappointed partner? Seems like it. Low energy in my life? Yup. Perfectly imperfect? Apparently. Exactly how it’s supposed to be? Not very comforting.
Yesterday, a feeling struck me that horrified me. I was sitting with the desire for awakening, for the lifting of the veil. Why not me? Why not now? Listening to music, feeling the haunting melodies, the almost-pained sound in the singing voice – deep longing and yearning with a sadness and desperateness in it. The music was beautiful. It lifted me, carried me, resonated in my heart – it felt like my own experience. And then the feeling that horrified me. That “It” wants this, that “It” finds the longing beautiful, engaging, enticing. I thought of the most stirring classical music I’ve heard, with long, tense building. I’m gripped, I’m leaning in, my heart is swelling and breaking and crying and pulsing – and then a glorious resolution, a rise to the peak. A majesty. A then quiet, releasing, a satisfaction, a melting. It’s like that, isn’t it? Awakening is like that. The experiences of life are like that. The grand resolution wouldn’t feel like much if it just happened at the beginning of the piece. The climax is so great because of the long build.
So the play must go on. The build will continue. Sometimes sad, sometimes frustrating, sometimes agonizing, annoying, joyful, boring, spirited, uplifting, deflating. A pulsing, a circling, a spiraling. Directed, it seems. Always moving and changing – yet revisiting many of the same emotions again and again. Allow the sadness, they say. Well, here you go. Here’s what the sadness has to say, here’s what the frustration has to say.
An aurora is out there tonight. I wish I could see it. I wish I could see the sky behind the clouds – a spectacular show is blazing. But the clouds are here. And the clouds are wanted. This sadness is wanted.
It just doesn’t feel that way.
[Written November 12, 2025]
