The Way Back to Lightheartedness

The way back to lightheartedness is up.  If down is a heavy sinking, getting stuck in quicksand muck, then up is the way to joy.

Up, up, out of the dark murk of the ocean floor, where no one can see anything unless they’re a jaguar shark.

The way back to lightheartedness is through the lava, the igneous, the metamorphic, the sedimentary*, the bottom soil and the top soil, until you finally bump into roots and know you’re headed in the right direction.

Ah, you might say, this is the stuff that anchors you in the earth; this is the stuff through which nourishment comes.  This is where worms slither and slide and wiggle with glee.  Wiggling is a key sign that you’re somewhere where something or someone is being fed, that you’re well on your way to lightheartedness.

Past the wiggling, you burst up into another layer, but it’s thinner because it’s mostly made of air, and you’re surrounded by damp grass blades, Nature’s version of that part of a car-wash in which you get brushed down by hundreds of grass noodles, preparing you to burst shining into the sun, free of the dirt, but remembering the smell, feeling the grainymoistclumpy texture echo on your skin.

The way back to lightheartedness is up, so hop on the back of a sprig of some dandelion fluff, and let yourself float on up.  You did it!

Feel yourself scatter and descend, watered back down into the earth, through all of the layers.  Bless your friends going in the other direction.  Then bless your own way.

Lightheartedness is not an end to a means; it’s a stop on the circle.

And you find your way back, again and again, only by going down and around to rise up once more.

*although not in that order–sorry, science!

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