"What goes up must come down....."

Let's start with an old Bood, Sweat and Tears song:  What goes up must come down, spinnin' wheel got to go round, talkin' bout your troubles it's a cryin' sin, ride a painted pony let the spinnin' wheel spin.

What goes up must come down.  The lyrics have it right.  I'm not sure about the line "talkin' bout your troubles it's a cryin' sin"....to me that line is part of the rhythm of life....but the core message of the song is that we live in a world of ups and downs, yes and no, light and dark.  If we experience one part of the duality, we'll experience the other.  Very simple, right?

Except I think there's a big human tendency to want only one side of the equation.  We so often think we want the ball up in the air all the time.  We want to be zinged all the time.  We so often want to be continually happy, continually rich, continually growing, continually expanding.  There's a part of us that wants to be the full moon all the time, shining whole and beautiful in the sky.

Yet the new moon comes around.  And another energy may appear.  In my life, maybe last weekend, after a long time of up-up-up and happy-happy-happy, suddenly all there seemed to be was emptiness.  After having a zillion things to say on Gaia, suddenly nothing was there.  Nothing funny, witty or stupid.  Just an empty sky staring at other people's words, and I had nothing to say. 

It was disconcerting.  Although I knew intellectually and spiritually that it was just part of the rhythm of life (and possibly a necessary adjustment back into balance) there was a sense of vulnerability.  Where was the Kathy that I knew?  Is my time at Gaia over?  This felt uncomfortable and sad.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to be happy and full and zinging all the time.

Another part of me just smiled gently and said, "Just be in this energy right now.  It's OK.  What does it feel like?  Just stay right here."  So I relaxed into the emptiness and began to feel the way it had a subtle beauty, a subtle shining.  It allowed Presence, rather than demanded Presence.  Ahhh yes!  Beautiful emptiness, beautiful empty moon, the perfect complement to the doing & saying & thinking & movement.   I fell in love, once again, with the No-thing, with not having to do anything, with the Being that underlies everything.

Why do we sometimes struggle with this so much?  Instead of simply allowing the next shift of energy to happen.  The world is not just expansion.  It's contraction too.  In our societal quest for more production, more goods, more buying........isn't that bound to contract also?  Everything adjusts towards balance. 

Some have suggested that cancer is an epidemic where the cells have forgotten the natural rhythm of contraction and expansion.  Instead the cells keep multiplying, multiplying without the corresponding cessation of growth. 

Sometimes, when we forget this vital truth and continue on the path of outward doing, doing, doing (expanding endlessly) our bodies remind us by contracting into pain or sickness.  We are then forced, perhaps not so gently, to return to the balance of rest, essence, being. 

Of course, I am feeling happy once again that the energy is expanding and this blog is appearing after the emptiness!  That the connection feels to be flowing once again.  That the moon disappears and then shines full and beautiful in the spacious sky.