And I think many of us feel keenly this sense of carrying the weight. I long have. It weighs you down. It takes the joy from your life. It makes everything harder.
But it occurred to me yesterday that that weight is really a part of our core selves which has been hollowed out of us, and externalized. It is the part of us which we have not lost, but which we have forgotten how to use. It is like an emotional tumor which grew within us, and was placed on our shoulder, but which still consists entirely in healthy tissue trying to get back in synch, to find its way home (listening to the Beetles, it almost sounds like the “lullaby” is “carry that weight”. That is one of those songs you’ve heard so many times it means nothing.)
And it felt to me like our job is to tap into this weight, and to slowly allow it back within us. It is a painful process. It is like eating–rather, swallowing–a bucket of pebbles. But each pebble, reintegrated, becomes a part of our light system again. It both stops weighing us down, and then starts lifting us up. It is a reintegration.
All of that weight is potential. All of that weight is darkness which was once light, and has lost its way, because some part of you has lost its way. But it is always still there. You just have to face it, allow it to speak, allow it to dissolve, and allow it back into your consciousness, into your body, and into your emotional life.
This is the path.