“A Thousand Yins and Yangs”

Thomas Moore, from his book, Dark Nights of the Soul, says:

“You may get to the point where you realize that if you want happiness, you have to accept profoundly and honestly the sadness that waits at every turn. Every decision for happiness will get you in trouble, and your occasional courageous forays into the dark will likely give you a taste of heaven. Opposites weave back and forth into each other, like a thousand yins and yangs interpenetrating.”

I’ve been pulling back and observing things lately. That includes observing my moods and waves of upset, of bliss. This has been a tumultuous time. My whole being is trying to find equilibrium in a new world. Everything is different. My children are responding differently to the divorce than they were even 6 months ago, responding differently to me, to our relationship. One of my sons is finally coming into a more expressive phase in his unfolding and the demands in general have gone from plenty to surreally plenty. The way I put myself out into the world around me has changed. And apparently this is my week for rage. The cauldron is turned upside down, further removal of stagnating stuff.

It’s a bit much. But I find Moore’s words right on time, right when I despaired of the thousand yins and yangs weaving back and forth in my own soul. The trick is not to despair. Not that it means eternal bliss. It just means you can be with yourself in more comprehensive acceptance and objectivity that does not lose the subjective soulful perspective of self. It can seem like a tangle ’til you pull back and take a long look.

I got this book of Moore’s earlier this year and had to put it down. The affirmation hurt too much. It haunted and confirmed things I had been second-guessing in my soul. Self-doubt melted on levels that required a tremendous level of adjustment. I suppose it was a bit much wine in wineskins fresh from the work of weaving new threads into the old layers, readying me for a versatility supreme. But I’m able to read it more these days in all that spare time I have so little of.

I like this perspective of what happens when we get so close to the interworkings of the soul:

But then a kind word, a reminder from a wise soul or the patterns of life’s changing tides pull us back, scoop us up and draw us out to a broader view and we see: