Musings on Being Broken Open in the Abyss

It’s January 14th, 2021, and there’s so much at stake-- it feels like the world is literally crumbling around us, the sky is falling, and no one is coming to save us. Not even the aliens from Arrival.

I want to start there, in what I lovingly call “The Abyss”...it’s a place covered in darkness, cold, removed, empty. Yes, it’s the precipice of pain, but it also has the potential to be transformed into the womb, into the place we exist before we are reborn, a sanctum of universal understanding and power. I have been in that place before, more times than I would like to admit, and as I sit there now, I am here with billions of others for the first time in my life. The entire planet is in the cocoon, and many of us are not going to survive our metamorphosis until we embrace the change that stands directly before us.

But today’s post isn’t about theoretical and metaphysical things; it’s about being broken open, what that means and where we go from there.

I want to start with a story, one about Athena. No surprises here, right? In her short time on this earth, Athena taught me more lessons than I will ever be capable of writing here, and her death broke me open in a way nothing else ever has, and I imagine never will. Why? Because, The Abyss is about separation, despair, a false sense of permanence. When Athena died, it took me a long time to feel her spirit had left me. I would see her everywhere in my house, I would hear her sigh, and she would come to visit me in the most vivid dreams. And with that presence came peace mixed so heavily with sorrow that it felt like heartache would burst forth from the same chest that heaved at night with the weight of grief. As time passed, it did what it always does: rewriting histories and erasing memories. My grief rituals would go from multiple times a day to just once a day or every other day, and when I remembered that I forgot to do them all, it would feel like she had died all over again. I began to be unable to recall all of the subtle intricacies of Athena’s face...she was fading, and no amount of obsessive grieving was helping. It was such a rollercoaster of intense emotions, and all of this done in the solitude of “The Abyss.” 

However, I knew I couldn’t stay there, and Athena wouldn’t let me. First, the dreams stopped, then the constant memories repeated in my waking mind. Eventually, I stopped seeing her spirit lingering in all of our sacred spaces -- the backyard, the top of the stairs, the side of the bathtub, our favorite park, and the foot of the bed. It felt like the security blanket I clung to for salvation while sleeping in the pit of The Abyss was gone. I knew Athena was telling me to elevate, to expand beyond the pain, but I just couldn’t. I held on to the sorrow because it felt that was the only place to be in communion with Athena, and when she removed herself from the equation, I knew that I had to move on. I had to. There was nothing left for me in the despair of the dark, if Athena was not there. 

I’d like to say I left The Abyss as soon as mortally possible, but I didn’t. I took on new projects and new beings to care for in an effort to fill the black hole The Abyss with love, with self-righteousness, with in-authentic “self-care,” which was just self-torture manifesting as perseverance and selflessness. 

And to be frank, that’s where we are as a planet. We are here in this Abyss, languishing together, but the comfort we found there is waning. There is nothing for us here anymore...and we have to leave the ghosts of whatever life we think we had before behind. In the time before Corona, before wide-scale climate degradation, disrespectful and dangerous politics (this one has been about 1000 literal years, FYI -- but that’s another post), and mass destruction.  We are now fully broken, so shattered that it only makes sense to rise out of the pit and find our footing on the earth. 

You see, it’s when I joined the world of the living that I realized that my brokenness was here, outside of the darkness...it had followed me into the light. And as it was exposed, I began to see all of the places within me that still needed to be healed and that I had filled up with Athena. With her extraordinary spirit, her well-placed side-eye, her effervescent joy of the outdoors. I had become so full of her, so intoxicated and transfixed by her powerful love, that I forgot to work on filling those gaps and breaks within myself with my inner light, and a deep connection to the Divine Spirit and a direct line to the heartbeat of the Universe. 

2020 was the kind of year that I would jump and beat-up in a back alleyway. That’s saying a lot for me since I do not believe in violence - like ever. But I would put on some brass knuckles and fight 2020, Street Fighter style. It’s been a grease fire aflame in an oil-soaked dumpster, and no one has been spared. It’s easily been one of the worst years of my life. One full of so many “almosts” that I could weep for eternity over it. And when I say “almost,” I mean it. I have held my desires (or what I thought they should be) in the palm of my hands and watched them leak like water from a closed fist. And by the time I realized that I should have unclenched my fists and cupped the water in an open hand, it was too late. There was nothing left but the vacuum of regret. 

However, I recognize everything that happened for what it was -- a blood-soaked birth out of The Abyss. A reality rupturing exit from the comfort of the same darkness that comforts us all; a chance to be reborn, fully aware, and ready to work on the parts of us that remain unseen.

As you read this and think about the state of things, remember that we are here to learn-- about ourselves and each other. It’s not about sitting in eternal judgment and condemnation. It’s about understanding that the darkness has always been here and that without an honest harnessing of our own light, it cannot be conquered. I hope my candor makes space for you; that showing you all that exists below my surface is a depth that you can wade into but not drown in. I hope you see my story for what it is -- a chance to connect beyond the pain and the hurt, to ground in gratitude, and be supported by hope. 

These days, I hear a message reverb inside of me that plays on repeat: “what is done in the dark shall always come to light--- always.” And when it does, we must be ready to cast out, forgive, and rebuild. We can not re-enter The Abyss in the name of justice and retribution and not become trapped in the self-absorbed pain of that place. Even the most well-intentioned of us will be consumed by the heart of The Abyss. 

Athena taught me that. I still don’t see her anymore, but I feel her close. I know that my rebirth is not yet complete; I have so much more expanding to do, space to take up, and forgiveness to give -- to myself and others. 

But I know that I am on the journey to who I was born to be. I am confident that I will meet Athena upon the road, in the place of bittersweet memory. I hope I will find you on the road to the Divine as well. 

May we meet on the path.