The Sadness (Oh, Butternut)
“Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful... How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural — you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.”
I dreamt of sadness last night, as though in a sleep state I was finally able to let it in (the sadness) and let it out (the tears). It opened something up in me to feel it, even in my dreams, to cry and hold my face in my hands. Sadness, just how sad life can be sometimes with the state of our world, the divisiveness and discord, violence and suffering, the isolation and loneliness (only amplified during the pandemic), and just the everyday losses, difficulties and disappointments.
Sadness can feel like a deep pit or chamber in the ground, as though it might swallow me up. And yet to deny or ignore it seems false, that doesn’t feel right either. It seems the only real and honest choice then is to acknowledge sadness: to allow it, to have more patience and come into contact with it, to let it inform my being. What might be revealed if I turn towards, rather than away from, this sadness? Intuitively, I sense that deep and dormant energies within me would be released, perhaps greater freedom to challenge the patterns, conditions, causes and systems that lead to so much suffering. Is it possible, in sadness lies some of the power of my own being?
And what might get in the way of that? Not wanting to appear sad to others (to be such a drag!), always the pressure or expectation to be upbeat, positive, carrying the “good energy.” But what if sadness could be part of that good energy, even a vital and necessary part? Allowing myself precious moments to be in touch with the very sad, sometimes disappointing state of our world, of my own grief and losses, to enter those tender, vulnerable places. From this view, my sadness and my love for the world feel like two co-existing parts of what brings the beauty of life into sharper focus.
Which brings me to an old friend, the Butternut Tree. This was to be her final day today, she was supposed to come down this afternoon after standing there on the low hillside in our backyard for 60 years or more. She held her ground, stood through it all: the winds and storms, freezing winters and brilliant sunlit warm summer days, the Cuban missile crisis and “Miracle Mets” of ‘69, sharing her fruit with the squirrels and other wild critters in the neighborhood. Now that she’s scheduled to come down, her limbs and branches dying one by one due to the canker, the infection spreading like a cancer through the body, the Butternut for some reason suddenly surprises and touches me with a feeling of intimacy and friendship. I want to go out in the yard, envelop her in my arms and rest my head against her powerful trunk.
I tell myself it’s ok, her time has come, and yet it pains me to see her go. There’s something grand about a big old tree, her stature and dignity, a quiet strength and reserve. She is here with a life of her own, every bit as much as me. Who knows, maybe she was born or sprouted up in ‘58 (same as me, sixty-two years old!) our lives running in parallel lines. Yes this was supposed to be her final day, except it’s raining; the rains have come to grant the old Butternut a reprieve, if only for a single day.
There is resolve arising within me to be more present with the sadness when it comes, to spend a little time with and welcome these feelings. Who knows what will come from that, and what will become of me in the process? I look up again along the sturdy trunk, oh Butternut! And now the rain comes down my cheeks, choked with emotion, wetting my face with sadness and gladness for her life.
The “Psychosynthesis-Inspired Writings” blog is written and hosted by Jon Schottland.