The Empty Space

Yesterday was hard in the most human of ways. Rushing my parents’ dog to the vet as blood gushed from his body. Today, I cannot get out of bed.

This is what it is. My body and brain and heart and soul are responding to the very tenuous aliveness of crisis and death.

As I napped this afternoon, I entered into a short dream space. There was a guide— a witness. As we stood there, a hole (more like an oval-shape) opened in the fabric of the ground. 

In the hole was emptiness. The void. And death was in there too. And my dreams. 

And the voice said, “Write about that, Jane. Write about dreams and death and the empty space.”

So I am for you, now. 

—

And what will I say?

All of us enter into times in our lives (and most of us find ourselves here now), where there is in front of us an empty space. What was is gone— or slowly fading away in the rearview.

What will be is miles down the road.

And what is here is emptiness. This is the space between death and life. And it is precious.

Because this emptiness is where all life comes from.

There have been many times in my life where I died, or faced death, or ended a relationship— and I sped on too fast to the next space. I rushed it. I got ahead of the Great Rhythm, and I cheated myself out of aliveness.  

Not this time. Not for one of us or for all of us. This Life arising for you and for me requires full death. It requires blood and tears and sweat. It requires silence and quiet. Gentle evenings unbinding ourselves from all of the habits we had that don’t serve life. It is slow work. It isn’t quantum healing. It’s the 18 months after plant medicine work.  It’s the months after a partner dies when we unravel into the unknown. Its the silent mornings after divorce.

Its the emptiness where we feel all the stories screaming about why we shouldn’t sit in the emptiness. It’s the place we get to find trust in the sacredness of human life that is far, far deeper than any of our religions or spiritual practices or schools have taught us. 

Its the emptiness where we finally get to know that we’re okay, just as we are.

(Which is where the true resurrection lives).

—

I’m in here, too. 

Letting my dreams unbind and unwind me, letting go of any ideas I have about how this all will go, or any illusions I have that we have any control. And I’m resting, writing, singing, softening, remembering— that everything I am looking for is right here, with me, in this empty hole where Death lives.

And from here, one morning, I know we will be born again. 

But for now, all I know to do is whisper stories and songs in your ears— of the places in the fabrics of time and space where we all go but may not recognize. May my words help you find your way.

Deep gratitude to the voice in my nap dream who guided me here, now. 

Writing of death and dreams and the empty space.

And so it is.