You asked me how I became a madman.  It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen.
~Khalil Gibran

I did not know him, I knew my idea of him.
~Sharon Olds

The light doubles and casts through the dark a sparkling that heavens the earth.
~Galway Kinnell

Student: Have you ever been in hell?

Chögyam Trungpa: Yes.

Student: How did you get out?

Chögyam Trungpa: I tried to stay there.

Whoever went in
naked to the core.

Whoever cast aside
all the armor.
all the fastenings.

Who could breathe air thin as flame.

Drink water pressed from blossoms,
rose petals
or violets.

Whoever stayed in that
darkness so dark
it became a circle of seeing.

Who could hear
the silent flute note
of the stilled wind,
hold rock turning to light.

~ Dorothy Walters
from Marrow of Flame

The Visitation, Mariotto Albertinelli, 1503

One of my favorite words comes from the study of astronomy.  Derived from the ancient Greek, syzygy, meaning “yoked together,” is a straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies in a gravitational system. Syzygy sometimes results in a transit, an occultation, or an eclipse, as it does tomorrow morning, when the moon will be eclipsed (at it’s maximum) at 4:48 a.m. Pacific time.

“It doesn’t have to make sense.  You don’t have to make sense–even to yourself.  It’s not going to make sense for a while.  It may never again make sense in the same way things used to make sense.  The more you fight it, the harder you make it to receive the Life that wants to live through you. We do not mean to chide you, but we do mean to get your attention!  That said, you are always exactly where you are meant to be and everything arrives in perfect timing.

“If you’re sensitive to the eclipse portal and energies, you may find yourself feeling disoriented, lost, or somewhat agitated these last days.  This is good news! Allow those feelings to arise, dissolve, and return to the sea from which all phenomena originates. If you’re distressed, be tender with the part of yourself who is searching for a solid sense of identity or reality.  You are in the midst of a profound transformation and some of you may be experiencing this as a death or a sadness.  On the other end of the spectrum some of you may be feeling excited and happy for no discernible reason.  You do not need a reason!  And some of you may find yourself alternating between this polarity.  All is well.  As best you can during this time, do not search for solid ground. See yourself as the rainbow you are–a prismatic display of light appearing to have beginning and end, but when you search, you can find neither.  Be patient; you will embody and ground this light in perfect timing.”

It’s so simple–if still a mystery–that which flows freely where it will. Love is like water that way. It’s possible to divert. It’s possible to contain.  But to do so is wholly unnatural.

Twenty-one and broken open, against every instinct, I released my baby to the unknown. Sometime, in the aftermath, in a circle of women–friends, sisters, lovers–I realized what it would take me years to realize. Everything is calling us (in Marge’s moon voice): love with the hands wide open, with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard unlocked.

It became an imperfect and failed practice, a working theory of the heart. Beautiful even in its failure.

I didn’t understand that trying to let go was the same as trying to hold on.

The grasping–it got worse before it got better. But even the grasping I love now. I love it like my own child held in the arms of an infinite sky.

Somewhere, on a flattened map of the heavens, my sun sits opposite yours. In that intersection of space and time, I could not miss the light of your burning.

[For C, C, and A.  With deep gratitude to Marge Piercy, whose poem “To Have Without Holding,” has nourished me for years.]

Traveller, there is no path
The path is made by walking.
By walking you make a path
And turning, you look back
At a way you will never tread again
Traveller, there is no road
Only wakes in the sea.

~Antonio Machado

As I write tonight, we are 48 hours from a total solar eclipse in Pisces.  Many of you have already felt the wave of energies, as so many of us are far less-aligned with linear time than ever.  And even within the scope of linear time, eclipse energy is activated before (and often many months after) the exact event. Pisces is a water sign; planetary movement within that region of the heavens can sometimes bring overwhelming emotional waves, and currently, there is a pile-up of planets there, supporting us to release what no longer serves us and focus anew.  In Pisces, we are asked to surrender our plans–small and large–to the soul’s wisdom.  Eclipses here can feel like a drowning, a tsunami, an unanticipated bridge to an unmapped territory, your waters breaking before the birth of your baby, spring showers that nourish newly planted seeds, dissolution into bliss, or all of the above and more.