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.