The End of the Beginning

Quicksand. Whirlpools. Tornadoes. Black holes.

These sucking, capturing, destroying images have haunted me forever.

In dreams, in stories, in patterns throughout the unfolding of my life. I pull forward toward the life that I believe I want. And then, the swirling magnetic pull of my past insidiously shifts the course under my feet, and before I know it I am heading back toward the void. Back toward the black hole. Back to the center of the tornado, the sucking vortex of oblivion.

I have spent so much energy. Read so many books. Attended so many workshops. Filled dozens of journals. All to find ways to outrun the void. The sucking darkness. The old patterns. The ancestral suffering.

It hasn't worked.

Rather, it has worked for awhile. Until it doesn't. And it seems that the longer it has worked, or the better it has worked, the harder the snap back into the old familiar territory. And the more painful the landing.

I give up.

I am putting it all down. The books. The strategies. The mantras. The life preservers. The words and stories and life rafts of others.

I am putting it all down, and I am walking my ass into that void. With my head held high. With some swagger in my hips. With a cigarette burning in my hand.

I am going in, and I don't know what I will find there. I just know that I am finished running.

In fact, I think the running is where this void derives all of the power that it has in my life.

What if I can stand in the center of oblivion and move freely in any direction that I want? What if, from that place of nothing, everything is possible? What if, without the judgement of what is the "right" path, all paths lead to here? What if contentment is the magic that undoes the whole disastrous shuffling toward....toward what? Perfection? Completion? Wholeness?

What if wholeness is in the center of that sucking darkness?

I will let you know.