The Descent

In meditation teaching, we talk about the 3 parts of a retreat. The first third being a kind of descent, a fighting against or restless settling into the experience of silence, renunciation and seclusion. The second third is a surrendering to the container, being in alignment enough to drop inside of the practices and receive what they reveal. And the third is reemerging from the depths and integrating into everyday consciousness. As I write this, it has me think of the Pascal mystery of passion, death and resurrection that's celebrated over Easter. Interesting timing. Many of us have been in the experience of that first third these past few weeks - the descent, with all of its wrestling against reality, bargaining with god & others, trying to make ourselves comfortable in hell. If you're lucky, you've already hit bottom, and surrendered to being in the below. If not, you might need to keep fighting until you're stripped bare and exhausted enough to let go. At least that's how it's worked for me in my many rounds through this journey. The decent is quite a practice. But I'm grateful to my teachers who gave me opportunity after opportunity to discover the beauty down here.