Deeper Sorrow

Tears graced my reality this morning. Yes, tears. They were and are a grace. Hard to think of tears this way? Think again. Sometimes I cry just because the tear buckets are full and need emptying. Nothing’s wrong. I’m not hurt or upset or anything specific—I just need to cry. Does this ever happen to you?

Tears, like laughter, are a form of release. They change the way I interact with my day, whatever its agenda. This is why it’s easy to welcome them. Tears bring change, and change is what life on this planet is all about.

This business of change can feel tricky. I am someone who welcomes change. My friends think I take risks. My inner experience of myself isn’t always how I am perceived. Funny thing about that.

It’s taken a little time and some contemplation this morning and now I think I know why I was crying. I was crying for a future I won’t be living. This is not to say that I won’t be living in the future. It’s just that one of the futures I thought was available to me isn’t, so I cried. I cried, and I let it go. Another future is coming to be even as I write.

Kahlil Gibran is a lovely poet. He wrote, “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” It’s true. Emotion is a spectrum. Refuse to experience sorrow, cut it out of your experience, and joy is also lopped off your emotional spectrum.

So, dear one, welcome tears whatever their cause, or even if they’re causeless! In creating perspective in a drawing, one of the rules is that the darkest dark must touch the lightest light thereby creating three-dimensionality in a two-dimensional medium.

Tears this morning? Go ahead, cry. Usually, joy by noon.