in the darkness

ya gotta admit, february is a great month for this, dontcha think?! ;)

occasionally i find myself, plunged deep into my shadow, usually not sure how i wound up there and often wondering what to do next.

last night at circle, i found myself near tears--in the middle of netivah studies! seemingly totally unrelated. my usual tack is to search my feelings to see what's up. last night this took me into turmoil where i ended up feeling very frustrated. but again, i dove deep into it, for better or worse. i figure if a feeling shows up, it usually wants to be expressed somehow. and now, after i've been feeling better, i can see again, although i'm never sure in the moment; that feeling it, praying for guidance and letting it all go, appears to have been the right thing to do.

got a crazy schedule these days with working full-time (4 10-hr overnight shifts) and returning to grad school, still spending time with my son and supporting his life (he's 18, so he won't need me much longer!). work is sun-wed, getting off thursday morning and classes are mon-tues-wed. by tuesday afternoon's class, Life is feeling pretty surreal due to my strange sleep schedule (mostly naps from sunday till thurs). i usually don't feel like myself again until friday morning, after sleeping thursday night and turning my days/nights back around to normal. i think this is the main stressor that threw me off last night.

but there are also aspects to this path that i'm not practised or good at dealing with, like that gnosis is between knowing and not knowing. how does this work for someone who spent most of her childhood not feeling real? not very well. i've worked hard to learn how to validate my own reality, but now, with these new experiences happening and there really doesn't seem to be a way to validate, no source of context, what i'm experiencing. appears that i need to get comfortable with not knowing, but there seem to be infinite layers, for me, around that issue.

faith and doubt take on whole new meanings, for me, with gnosis.

clearly much more to contemplate.

meanwhile, like i said, i got to a place where i felt better. and believe it or not, i'm still in touch with that. at some point, after entertaining doubt, i just have to move forward in faith, trusting that Holy Mother will lead me in a way that i'm able to follow. trusting that She wants me to follow and that She'll have patience with my issues because Her Love is so beyond my comprehension, that She doesn't mind. it's not possible for me to be too much trouble for Her. somehow i know this. that as long as i, literally (lol), long and desire and put forth effort, with Her help and guidance it will be enough.

Faith can be enough.

so these times of diving deep into shadow seem to be good as inventories of issues, a sort of cleaning house, even if nothing seems to change. a good time to ask for and receive Divine help. and a good time to express gratitude when supported and lead out of the darkness, back into the light.