Afraid of Dullness

Only one sentence on how tedious empty time can be when all you're doing is waiting? Barely acknowledging the dark rim around a restful time - what if 'rest' just feels 'dull'?

I confess, I fear dullness. A feeling of not being able to connect or get close enough to the pulse of life. I confess more, when the dullness comes over me I tend to blame my environment. It's not clean enough, pretty enough, the ambiance is not right and therefore none of my practices of being fully present will work. I can't be comfortable, let alone spiritual. The location trumps my actions. I must resign, wait it out until I can be in an environment I prefer, that nurtures me and supports my desired experience of lusciousness. I must be dull.

Oh dear.

No wonder I'm afraid of it. It's a ruthless way to think. Fundamentally helpless, encouraging a need to be in minut control of every detail of my physical space in order to just be me. I see it's strangling threads in many things - in every time I've told myself 'just wait it out, when the circumstances get back to good *then* you can be all passionate again'. Every inch of the specialness of life so critically dependent on these nothings of walls and stuff.

But, passion is my home. I am an ecstasy turtle, I can carry that home with me when it's needful. It's a basic and sacred need to have a healthy and safe environment. I think place matters and we have the right to choose and cultivate environments that nourish us and empower us to be our fullest. But you will never have total control about where you physically are in every moment of life. And some of those environments are just....dull. How do I got from stuffing my vitality into some back closet until my place is just right, to unleashing it always and living inside it. What does it mean to do that when I miss my perfect cup or that one book that would inspire me appropriately or the view that calms me or the food that delights me or the person that would make me feel connected or beautiful or special - the endless list of things I've come to feel I can't be passionate without?

Well, today, I simply slowed down around this unwinding insight. I turned off all my distractions, I took a deep breath, and I let its smooth wisdom voice undulate gently - easing my anxiety over dullness and seducing my blame of the space into a flowing trust of my true home. And I only felt it, rocking back and forth between fear and trust, until I knew how to be my fullest self even here, right now.

Maybe that moves me to write, or reach out to someone specifically for a spark, or to dance - whatever it takes to shake off the tyranny of 'its not perfect so I can't relax' - but it starts with just feeling it, the fear, the dullness, the vitality underneath it splashing out the cracks in the dryness.

candlelight whispers its amber secrets
under sandalwood scented starlight.
Creak and groan as the water rocks the boats to sleep,
I feel night descend on my skin

This is someone else's view still I let my hair down
when beauty speaks to you you're bound to come undone.
To this heart so afraid of dullness:
never fear, you were made for this.

You were made to be the full and pregnant moon
to the radiating, creative virility
you were made to be
the flute it breathes through

Another antidote