Beauty in Decay

by Carla Royal on February 16, 2010

screen saver 14 300x225 Beauty in DecayI have several friends who are in a dark/decay season of their lives.  Somehow I want to honor the beauty of those places.  I want to support my friends to find the richness in those places.  I want to encourage them to stay, just as I am encouraging myself to stay during those times.  By stay, I mean allow it to be, relax into it, maybe even welcome it.  Rumi advises:

This being human is a guest house.  Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!  Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.  He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.*

In no way do I want to minimize or trivialize how difficult the dark seasons can be, and I want to encourage all of us to open to the possibility of richness in those times.  How different would our experience of darkness and decay be if we could learn to welcome them instead of resist them?  I know that I have caused myself, and those around me, much suffering by resisting and struggling against the darkness.  The darkness and decay will come–no matter what we do, no matter how much we struggle against them.  So what if we opened to the possibility of welcoming them, to the possibility that some new delight may be awaiting us?

I’d love to hear from you about how it’s been when you’ve struggled against the darkness versus relaxing into it.

*The Essential Rumi, Translations by Coleman Banks.

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Tagged as: Beauty, Depression, Encouragement, Landscape, Photoblog, Possibility

  • http://www.eastreacheswest.com Alexis Houston

    Dear Carla,

    I have been thinking about these same things. Progressively, after I had that really deep awareness in Varansi, my body began to feel like a paper bag. It just became lighter, and lighter and lighter. Then I started to understand the joy of my own disintigration. I feel this solid core of divine strength in me. It is so real, like I have a baseball in my hand that I could throw. At the same time I realize that I am not really my physical body. the decay of transformation happens so rapidly at every level in our lives that there is nothing actually to grasp on to. It is all so short lived. But that blissful core, is so perfect and unbroken in the midst of the chaos and suffering. Maya (illusion) is also bliss.

    I love your posts. You are so gifted and I love that birch bark. It reminds me of our beautiful collective transformation.

  • Vivienne Whale Grace

    Dear Carla,
    I am an apprentice to what Rumi speaks of and there was a time in one of my depths of darkness I taped that poem to the side of my dresser so it could be the first thing I saw as I opened my eyes.

    I am learning to honour all my feelings one of the most painful of which was giving up hope. It was a feeling of utter desolation. Life did just not seem worth living the fight for our Gaia or peace just did not seem possible to win. I grew into understanding that I had to surrender, surrender to it all. Many times I thought suicide would be a door but I knew I could never walk through that door because of my loved ones. I am learning to surrender to the dark underworlds of my life as I call them and trust that like Spring I will return. The brown dead appearing bulb holds the beauty of a flower and I know my bleakness holds shoots of green. I no longer wish to save Gaia or fight for peace I’ve learnt I can only save myself and be peace. I love the work you are doing Carla using your beautiful imagery to invoke truth in us.

  • Linda Thurman

    Thank you for that quote, Carla–I could relate to it on a very deep and satifying level.

  • http://www.hillsideslide.blogspot.com Tina

    Wow.
    Found your link over at The Daily Coyote website.

    Your photos are lovely and speak right to the heart.

    Thanks for this one, especially.

    Loss and death can loom large over our lives. They are inevitable. They are coming.

    It helps me when a light is put on the beauty and necessity of these aspects of life.

    Thanks for a snapshot of that!

  • Carla

    Thank you for your kind words, Tina. I’m glad you enjoy the photos and the post.

    I’ve just been spending some time at your site, as well, and enjoy what I’m seeing! Thanks for your voice in the world.

  • http://www.hillsideslide.blogspot.com Tina

    Carla- thanks for stopping by my site! Yours is reminding me to be more intentional about my own.

    I’m glad I stumbled across yours and I will be back.

    Take care~ T

  • Joan

    This piece, the Rumi poem, and then, Vivienne’s understanding, which has been mine from precious time to precious time…that surrender is the key, just made a beautiful completion, brought me full circle – again! Thank you both so much. As one of the caregivers to a friend who is in treatment for breast cancer (surgery which she is recovering from rather well, f/u chemo to be f/u by radiation, but surgery was successful, according to all tests, so far) and as I search for almost two years for work, I needed this as much as all the gratitude work I am doing and positive thought work – this is the other side of one and the same coin. Also, your photos are so wonderful. Thank you. I see life coming from the end of another life, here, not just ending, but the beginnings that are frequently only possible once something has come to an end.

  • Vivienne Whale Grace

    Joan I love that you are embracing surrender.
    I stepped into my sister-in-law’s car last night and there was a little angel card sitting there
    “SURRENDER”
    I can hear the message over and over.
    love & blessings Vivienne

  • Carla

    Joan, thank you for your kind words and for your contribution here. I hope we’ll here more from you and your words of wisdom.

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