polarized.

the past six months or so have been a jumble of craziness. some good -- most bad. my uncle paulie was diagnosed with cancer, my grandmother took a turn for the worse as she passed away, a friend was killed in a motorcycle accident and just this week my father suffered a heart attack. there's always a silver lining, or so they say. he was lucky enough to survive. but it begs the question -- when will all of this crap stop piling up on us? i guess it never really does. the thing with life is that it's never really static, there's always something changing.

when writing to a friend this week, i wrote about how i felt like i was the sand at the beach and the ocean was lapping over me again and again. somehow i am resilient, crumbling slightly and yet maintaining some form from the other sand around me.

back to that silver lining... somehow jared and i decided that nj would be a better place for us to live and with all this drama, i got to remain surrounded by friends and family for all the crap. things like my father's heart attack are also a wake up call not only to live life fully but also to be aware. aware of how you take care of yourself and all the little things that come along with living. the fact that my uncle is now in remission reminds me that no matter how glum the outlook, things can always turn around.

i read a really great article on huffpo yesterday about just these sorts of situations. in a way, it's like the world is falling down around us all. but at that same time good, albeit beautiful things are happening. for instance my sister and i are getting married. but we all experience these rough times. these times allow us to turn within and what the article calls 'incubate'. i teach this stuff every week in my yoga classes and i hope to exercise it in my own life. it's funny how you can so easily offer something out to someone when you barely can fully experience it yourself -- but that happens.

there's darkness and there's light. we have our assumptions about which is good and which is bad. but from a tantric perspective good and bad aren't as important. the importance comes from gathering fullness in both. incubation occurs in darkness and it is in that darkness that development and transformation happens so the individual can emerge into the light stronger and fuller. a better version of they already are (possibly).

i've felt this sort of anxiety over the last few months, like when will the other shoe drop...what else can go wrong?? i try not to get caught up with it but when so many tough things keep coming your way you start to almost expect more. we all wait for things in the darkness: answers, signs, disasters and even miracles. allowing the darkness to be a comfort changes things. try it.

in the meantime, i wait not for just the bad, but also the good changes. and i think tomorrow will be a mental health day to just chill out and enjoy the light. maybe someone can pray for the rain to cease for just a little bit.