The Darkness is Heavy. And So Is The Light.

Words, As Fruit. #37

[…] sometimes we need what’s heavy. We need weight, not the kind that sinks us, but the kind that anchors, holds us…firmly, and steadily.

— (excerpt) Heart’s Transcript

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When I say, “I am a writer”, what I am always trying to empress, help others to understand, is that “I am a writer”, is the same as “I am alive”. It means the same as, I am breathing, I am inhaling (welcoming) and exhaling (releasing), and I am seeing (witnessing) through words and language. Words come through and from me because words are flowing within me. Writing and doing language keeps me in community and company, with myself and others, as we are leaving, and returning, growing, and maturing, grieving, aching, mending, loving, pouring, seeking, seeing, caring and understanding. This ability to write, to weave words, to do language, is more than just a talent, it has very little to do with luck. Instead, being a writer has everything to do with who, and how, I am. How I am made up.

A few months ago, someone asked me, “When did you first realize you were an empath?” and the question took me back to this moment is middle school. A group of four or five boys had all gathered together and around another boy and began taunting him. The taunting turned into pushing and the pushing turned into fists punching and landing upon the body of this young boy. As other students began gathering around, mostly to instigate, I stood, almost paralyzed, and crying hysterically. It was a teacher who both spotted the crowd, and me in hysterics, that finally came to break things up. As everyone returned to whatever was happening prior, I couldn’t shake the emotions that were overwhelming my body. It was as if I had not just witnessed the group of boys harming the other boy, it was as if my body had ingested, and absorbed all the emotions of that moment — the hate, and anger, and the fear, panic and pain.

Back then I was simply labeled “sensitive” and “emotional”. It wasn’t until my early 30’s that one of the healers in my life asked if I knew whether I was an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) or an Empath. This is when I began to understand this very distinct, unique, and vital, facet of who I am. It was also when I finally understood that nothing was, or is, wrong with me. Different, yes. Wrong. No.

“Empaths share all the traits of what Elaine Aron, Ph.D., has called “Highly Sensitive People,” or HSPs. These include: a low threshold for stimulation; the need for alone time; sensitivity to light, sound, and smell; and an aversion to large groups. […]

[…] empaths take the experience of the highly sensitive person much further: We can sense subtle energy (called Shakti or Prana in Eastern traditions) and actually absorb it from other people and different environments into our own bodies. Highly sensitive people don’t typically do that. This capacity allows us to experience the energy around us, including emotions and physical sensations, in extremely deep ways. And so we energetically internalize the feelings and pain of others—and often have trouble distinguishing someone else’s discomfort from our own.”¹

Recently I was brought back to this line from Toni Cade Bambara’s, Salt Eaters,

As we continue to collectively either ignore, acknowledge, or witness all that is happening to and around us — the multiple genocides, the police violence and cop cities, the dismantling of women’s and human rights, the struggling economy, the rate of houselessness, and unemployment, and global warming, and racism, and sexism, and genocide, and silence, and apathy, and ignorance, and genocide, and silence — I cannot help but to call out the weight of this darkness that seems to be trying to consume us. The violence, the witnessing, the silence, and the silencing have, over the last several weeks, become increasingly heavy and I find myself teetering off the edge of sinking, and balancing along the line/s of anchoring.

I don’t know how any of this works. How one stays conscious and feeling, broken open, but not broken.

During a 2001 interview, Toni Morrison was asked the question, “How do you survive whole in a world where we are all victims of something?" She answered,

“Sometimes you don’t survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about that solution. It is about being as fearless as one can. And behaving as beautifully as one can under completely impossible circumstances. [..] Good is just more interesting. More complex. More demanding. Evil is silly. It may be horrible, but it’s, at the same time, not a compelling idea. It’s predictable. It needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybodies attention.

But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance, those things are just more compelling, intellectually, if not spiritually…and they certainly are spiritually. This is a more fascinating job. We are already born. We are going to die. So we have to do something interesting, that you respect, in between.”

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One of my dearest Friends, Jason E.C. Wright said something recently that has been sitting on my chest. Not baby elephant sitting, more weighted arm laid over a bared chest, hand resting atop a beating heart, sitting.

Jason E.C. Wright said,

“The easiest time to move heavy things is when they’re in the air.”

Nothing in this world is final. The way things are, are the ways things have been allowed to be. What is, and what is not, is up in the air. Nothing is unchangeable. Nothing is unmovable. Nothing is impossible. I need to remind us of this because we are the ones who can choose to step into the light, stand there, sit there, lay there, make home there, bringing our presence, our weight, our actions, our fight, and our sight into the light.

The darkness is heavy. And so are we, the light.

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There are many, many thoughts and ruminations that don’t make it to the page, but they do remain transcribed on the heart and mind. For one reason or another, hitting send re-releases these thoughts. Instead of going back and editing in what now feels like left out pieces and parts, I’ll allow them space to rest adjacently. Maybe there’s a reason why they’re here…and not there, which is still here…

Post send, my mind I kept coming back to thoughts about weight, the necessary anchoring weight, the heavy sinking weight, and the weight of responsibility (might need to do a post pt.2 to delve into the weight of responsibility). While I make it clear that this anchoring kind of weight is essential, my hindsight vision is also telling me that experiencing, and finding ourselves beneath, the heavy sinking weight also serves its purpose because we begin to learn, and understand, the difference between the two, and learn, and understand, how to develop and keep one (the anchor/s) and how to release and let go of the other (the heavy and sinking).

Along side these additional thoughts on weight, I was also led to revisit words and perspectives on freedom, and other related words, synonyms – liberty, ability, privilege, spirit, right.

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"Freedom is choosing your responsibility. It's not having no responsibilities; it's choosing the ones you want."

— Toni Morrison

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"The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression."

— W.E.B. Du Bois

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"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute."

— Thurgood Marshall

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“Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us.”

— Susan L. Taylor

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“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.”

— Wilma Rudolph

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I set the intention, a few Sunday posts ago, to begin incorporating more questions into these pieces/peaces. At the end of the day, while it may be these words and my voice that take you somewhere, guide you over and through thresholds of consideration, and awareness, it should be your own voice that continues to guide you.

“Until each of us becomes our own leader, we really don’t have much of a chance to changing anything. And so that should be our desire, to develop ourselves, so we can lead ourselves, and not be led by people, no matter how highly moral, and intelligent or awesome, they may seem.”

— Alice Walker

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Here’s some fruit for thought. If you feel so inclined, I’d love to hear (read) your responses.

1. Who, besides ourselves, do we feel responsible for?

2. What does this responsibility mean?

3. Does this responsibility have a cost? If yes, what does it cost you?

4. What does it mean to be weight (like an anchor)?

5. Who/What are our current anchors?

6. Do we care enough about our futures, and the futures of those coming behind us, to take better care of each other?

7. What are our definitions of care, and what do these definitions encompass, and what do they leave out?

All for now…

— Ẹniafẹ Isis, Words, As Fruit. #37

1. Psychology Today, ‘The Differences Between Highly Sensitive People and Empaths’. Judith Orloff M.D. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empaths-survival-guide/201706/the-differences-between-highly-sensitive-people-and-empaths