Ray’s Ray Number 10
Honoring the Emptiness
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
There is an old saying that it is the emptiness
in a bowl that makes it useful. Of course, the form
creating the emptiness also makes it useful.
Without the form—no emptiness. Without the emptiness–
no form. I tried for years and years to fill the emptiness
that seemed to always exist in my heart, in my soul.
I tried all manner of addictions, all manner of spiritual traditions.
They seemed to work for awhile, but not really.
And so the emptiness remained.
It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized
the emptiness is important, even though it often
felt painful and endless and vast. Still, I learned,
(and am learning still) it is essential to my inner life.
There was no longer the urgent need to fill it.
There was no longer the idea that if the emptiness was there
then it was something I wasn’t doing, or not doing right, or enough—it was perhaps
something I was doing that was sinful and wrong—something I shouldn’t be doing.
I wasn’t saying the right prayers, I wasn’t eating the right foods,
I was masturbating and looking at porn (of course, there’s nothing
wrong with masturbating or looking at consensual porn.
It’s just growing up they were considered “sins.”), I was watching TV
for hours on end. I was being an asshole boy(girl)friend.
And then, this idea that emptiness is needed began
to inform my life. I could fill it if I chose, and sometimes
I did so with full consciousness and even with a desire
to share what overflowed. And sometimes I filled it without thinking,
and still do today. Social media is a powerful addiction for me.
If you’re living with an inner emptiness, perhaps try
to settle into it, or next to it, or around it—be the sacred form
that holds the sacred void. Perhaps fill it with dark water
and do a little scrying and see what arises. Perhaps
just leave it be—a living silence—a space that holds all things,
a space that holds no things. Perhaps try to love it, or, at very least,
acknowledge it. Perhaps change the form that holds the emptiness.
Perhaps do nothing, or dance, embrace, or create in the silence,
in the void within, and know it isn’t a weakness, or something wrong.
It is part of the totality of things, and is there
to give you the space to breathe.