The Same Nothing: What You Keep Going Back To

A shadow work meditation about what's over that you keep going back to. Something in your life is over. You know it's over. You keep going back to it anyway, checking, testing, putting your hand on it one more time to see if anything's changed. Nothing's changed. It won't. And you'll go back again. For anyone drawn to depth psychology, Jungian work, and owning the disowned.

Transcript

Let your eyes close and put your feet on a path. Dirt. Or down. Narrow. Respect hard and align the width of one person. With the growth pressing in on both sides of it. And nod into it. Breathe in. And let the breath go all the way out. Again. And let this one take its time. Start walking it. You do not watch your feet. There is no reason to. The path does what it has always done. And your legs know the whole of it. Where it rises a little. Where the root is. Where it bends and comes out. And here it is. The ground opens out. And packs harder and stops. There is a tree in front of you. In full leaf. Green the whole way up. The crown thick with it. More leaves on it than you could count. If you sat down and tried. Nothing has turned. Nothing on it is going anywhere. Look up into it. All that green layered over itself. Shifting where the air gets in. And low on one branch, Out near the end of it. About level with your face. One leaf that isn't. The colors out of it. It's gone thin and dry. Curl the little long one edge. And it keeps its shape the way a thing does when there is nothing left in it to change. Everything around it. Is in its full and green and carrying on. It hangs in the middle of that. It was cream. Not long ago, You looked up. At this same branch. And there was nothing to see. It was one of all the others, And you could not have picked it out. And there is no day you can put to it. Nothing happened here. No wind that took anything. No cold. No hand. You came, And you looked up, And it had already gone. It is set as well as any of them. Better than some. Whatever's come through here hasn't moved it. The first time it caught you. You were not looking up for anything. Now it is the first thing you find. Her arm goes up. The same as the feet on the path. Nothing decides it. It's just what happens when you get to the end of this walk. And stand under this branch. Take it. It in between your thumb and your finger. Up near the stem. Feel what it is now. Stiff. Papery. And dry all the way through. It makes a small noise when your fingers close on it. And feel the branch it's on. Sick. Full of water. Alive right up to the place where it isn't. You have stood exactly here before. This hand. Asleep. This much of it between your fingers. You know how the walkout goes too. Empty-handed. And back up the path. And nothing you would tell anyone about. Do not pull yet. Keep hold of it. What is over that you keep going back to pull at? Leave it in the hand. Now pull. Not hard. The way you always do it. A small earring drawer. The kind that expects to work. It doesn't come. Nothing tears. Nothing gives. The branch takes the pole and stays where it is. And the leaf stays on the branch. And the tree barely registers that you are down here. Pull harder. You will get the branch bending down. Towards you and springing back. Leaves knocking together up above. A green one coming loose somewhere out of all that and going down past your shoulder to the ground. This one stays in your hand. Let go of it. Take your hand back. And look at what's in it. The same nothing as the last time. It is finished and it is staying up. Both of those. It will be up there through everything that's coming. And up thereafter. And all that green. And nothing that reaches this tree. Is going to be the one that does it. You could stand here a long while. You have. Let the tree go on standing where it stands. Come back to the hand you actually have. Wherever you set it down. Feel it there. Enclosed on nothing. And let it open. Take its temperature. The air on the back of it. And whatever it is resting on. When the hand is only this hand. Let your eyes come open. You know which leaf it is now. Out of all of them. You will find it again.