Heartbreak is the Portal to Life

Life's ecstatic longing for your participation

image via pinterest

Do you create because you possess an already overflowing cup?
Or because you’ve stumbled upon a well brimming with perfectly polished gems?
Is the creative act the aftermath of a bubblegum trance?
Does it come from the sheer ecstasy of being?

Sometimes, maybe. But you know as well as I, that’s not the whole story.

More often than not, we must look beneath what’s shimmering.
Before the smiles and laughter and “everything’s perfect.”
Before the joy. Before the inspiration. Before the bubbly, bouncing energy.
Before the AHA moment.
Before any of that.

We must look to heartbreak. To grief. To longing.
To the queen separated from her king.
To the goddess writhing in agony.
To the eternal wanting.

We must feel into the infinite void.
We must touch that which can never be touched fully.
We must recognize the invisible threads of alchemy.

We must let them wrap around our wrists, our throats, our ankles —
until we remember: we asked for this.

I’m sure, because you’re human (you are human, aren’t you),
you’ve known your fair share of grief, heartbreak, longing.
The brilliance of ecstasy bubbling forth, opalescent and gleaming with primrose.
And then, the sharpness of separation.
The portal into the uncontainable ocean of your longing heart.

You choose this, don’t you? To separate?

You, artist, choose what keeps you intensely aware of your longing.
You press your fingers against the wound, press harder, deeper.
You dig in —
just to see what kind of music it makes.

I wonder why, sometimes.
Why the need to go so deep into the cracks,
the nuances, the crevices of darkness, the unfelt places.

It’s no secret—I’m a depth whore.
You, too?

Maybe it’s my kink, this separation thing.
This paradox.
This desire for deep merging, and the simultaneous need
for utter aloneness.
The need to feel everything in isolation,
with absolutely unmixed attention.
To feel everything as a prayer.
To altar my life.
To open.

There’s a misconception, though.
That longing is despair.
That longing is a black hole you’ll spiral into,
never to emerge again.

I propose the opposite.

Longing is a portal to Life itself, and More of it.
Because longing is the language of God, of Goddess, of the Universe, of Spirit,
of the Holy Unknown, of the Mystery, of the Miracle —
of whatever you like to call that invisible yet all-permeating force of animation.

The longing will never disappear.

But I see how, as artists, we sometimes fear its absence.
We fear that the force of our work may evaporate.
We believe must keep breaking and breaking and breaking,
never coming up for air.

We become enamored with the ache,
with the cracking open.
We lust for it, and in doing so,
create that which keeps us feeling
forever separate,
forever reaching,
forever hungry.

The thing is, we artists will do this no matter what.
We will stay hungry, We will reach,
always,
for that place from which all emanates.
It’s not wrong.
It’s perfect.
But there are two distinct ways to understand it.
Two ways to interface.

One way says, “I’m wrong for feeling this way.” And does everything it can to eliminate the feeling, thereby creating more separation.

The other way says, “This is — I am — everything I need. This shifting. This waxing and waning experience.” And does everything it can to feel that which is offered. And in this, creates connection through the experience of separation.

Remember:
since your first breath,
the Longing for life —of life — has always been here.
And always will be.

She will nudge you in as many ways as necessary toward the light.
She will slip notes under your door at night, scrawl riddles on your mirror,
press her lips to your ear when you think she’s disappeared.

She will be here, offering space, an initiation,
daring you to plunge yourself directly
into the center of her wanting.
Reminding you:
there is no grain of sand out of place.

Longing is your long lost lover.
The one you will return to always.

Longing is the invitation,
the ache of divinity
curling herself round your shoulders.
Longing is the secret passageway,
the hidden door.
And all you must do
is step through the opening.

Life is a sort of self-induced heartbreak.

I propose, (because It is the only thing)
that heartbreak
is exactly what is needed.
That heartbreak is the necessary cracking open —
the rapture through which we become
more receptive to life’s offerings
of Love, of Wonder, of Worthiness.
And there is nothing else to do,
nowhere else to go
but sweetly into her warm embrace.