The Belly of the Beast

No, this is not a post about the Apocalypse :) It’s related to our latest preoccupation with the issue of the odor in the basement crawl space – that belly of the beast - belching its odorous dankness. It’s interesting to me how life keeps presenting these little issues that have to be dealt with, that cannot be ignored, that rob my attention from other more delightful experiences. And of course I can usually find a metaphor in them, some revelation that I need to see about my own life and how it is being lived. My husband “descended” into the belly of the beast yesterday, as I stood outside its mouth, waiting for the objects to be passed out, so we could get rid of all things paper that might be absorbing dampness from the dirt and possibly emitting this fragrance – Eau de Must.

Now these objects that you see here in the picture are primarily my husband’s – things he didn’t want to have to deal with. Yes, you see where I’m going don’t you.... :) They include boxes and boxes and boxes of old books that he didn’t know what to do with, boxes and boxes of old receipts, boxes of junk, and boxes of electrical equipment that somehow miraculously disappeared from the basement a couple of years ago. There was also our old vacuum, old light fixtures, an old fan, and old computer equipment. You might say we have started our own landfill… He told me he had put “stuff” in the crawl space, but I had *no idea* how much *stuff* there was in there! So the great purge has begun. I will have to say, after I got over the initial shock of just how much “stuff” there was in there, it was exhilarating to be purging, although the boxes are now piled *in* the basement, needing to be weeded through – by guess who. Who knows what I will find.

Anyway, the obvious metaphor here is that what we don’t want to see or deal with we stuff deep down into the belly, the dark areas, the hidden areas and close the lid. And sometimes we forget that they’re there until an (emotional) odor starts to arise from the pit that we put them in – like anxiety, anger & depression… And then we have to open the pit and let it out. Interesting that none of the “stuff” was mine, although I have my “stuff” in other areas of the basement – more accessible. :) However, after the initial purging yesterday, today I tapped into a truck load of grief. Ah-ha, something *was* there for me to see. I mean deep, heart-wrenching grief, which initially seemed to be about the passing of our 18 year old cat in August. I had grieved some when he first passed, but not to this depth. And yet it felt like I was grieving for far more than the cat.

Grief arises in me from time to time, a kind of existential grief that I can’t quite get a handle on. When it arises there has been no death, no obvious loss, nothing to point to and say – yes, I am grieving for such and such. But there *is* this deep-seated grief that emerges from the depths. Today in meditation it arose again, which was probably facilitated by the memory of Yodi. So I descended into this pit of grief that contracts my gut and heart to take a look. And there still was no obvious revelation. So I just sat with it…

While sitting I remembered hearing some time ago that when we grieve it is not for the loss of the person, but for what might have been with that person. And maybe it was lunch with my mother this week that began to pry the lid off this pit of grief. In many ways I grieve for the relationship that we never had – the mutually loving, supportive, trusting relationship that never was… And it’s possibly this “loss” that I grieve, along with many other subtle losses of life that keep me wishing that life could have been different. And maybe that’s the seeing here – the grief is about wishing that things could have been different, instead of embracing the way that they actually are. I know this is based on a belief in separation, believing the story that something should be happening other than what is happening – that life should have gone a different way - instead of how it actually is, which sets up the need to try to control and change things instead of living life as it is, being present to what is, as it is.

What I also saw this morning was that when we *see* from the eyes of Wisdom all is infinitely well - as it is. When seen through the eyes of Being, the contraction around the emotional pain is released from the belly of the beast. The *living* Consciousness absorbs it all back to Itself, and all is well – no struggling, no regret, no resistance to what is – just *living* what is, consciously – including all the emotions that sit in the pit. It seems so simple when it’s said, when it’s heard, but it seems the beast sometimes doesn’t want to be seen. As Adyashanti says: You have to have “an unflinching willingness to *not* look away from anything that causes the illusion of separation (which causes suffering). You have to look inside, to look at it with silent scrutiny” – and just see.

When I looked into the belly of the beast this morning, it wasn’t the monster that I had anticipated it would be. With some light and a little ventilation it belched and spit out its contents - releasing its emotional odor. And all was seen to be well, as it is…