“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”
~Pablo Picasso
Destruction and creation are not opposites. Instead, they are requisites. Nothing can be created without something first being destroyed. Nothing can be destroyed without it first being created. What if there is an unknown, living wisdom in all of it? What if we could trust it? What if we could rest and exhale into the destruction that gives space for something different to exist. Perhaps, something deeper. Something more true. Like how the burning down enables certain trees to grow deeper roots and thicker bark. Or, how there are certain serotinous cones that require intense heat in order to open up and release their seeds to the forest floor. With the fire comes the allowance of what belongs…to grow, flourish and thrive. Whatever is native to your soul no longer has to fight against what is invasive and foreign because of your own innate ability to survive, adapt and begin again.
Think also about the devil’s claw. Remember that. The genius of their evolution. They have adapted to destruction in order to exist. To be in existence. To carry on. Attaching to the feet of animals as they walk, the pods then are crushed open through the weight of the living creature pushing up against the hard earth, grounding and spreading the seed of the plant so that it may create new life. The pod, in it’s original form, is destroyed. The seed is revealed through the destruction of what was…in order to move forward into what IS.
Sometimes, that is how it works right? Sometimes, you set out to create a certain something…only to find it taking a form that resembles nothing of your original thought or dream or desire.
There are times where life just takes you through a wildfire.
There are times where life destroys everything you once held true.
This is where we find ourselves totally lost, without direction, uncertain and in intimate communion with what is most true.
What do you do with that intense energy of falling apart? It is a tender place, the rubble. The ash. The rust and the trash. It is a place I have known. Intimately.
I’ve built forts out of broken debris.
I’ve held gaze with my own eyes through a shattered mirror.
There is no answer for this sort of thing.
Sometimes things get destroyed.
Whether that is through our own knowing, our own failing, or the acts of arson by an outsider on everything we held sacred. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. The truth is, sometimes, it all burns to the ground.
This is a threshold.
This is where parts of you are finally born.
This is where parts of you finally die.
This is, hopefully, where we become more in touch with our authentic hearts. More you. More me. More full of the raw energy of embodying the extraordinary creation of our one solid existence.
Cross over. Become.
Trust the process of making new life. True life. Out of the unfulfilled scraps left behind.
I took a pair of scissors and I cut and I tore and I pulled and was led.
There is an energy in destruction. It is to be respected.
In sharing this, I don’t mean to condone or inflate or give reason to be negligent and hurtful. That is not my truth or my intent.
But, if it happens, when it happens…through your own hands or those of someone pressing themselves into your life…destruction in and of itself can bring with it tremendous heat and speed and abolishment.
Here. This is a very reverent space of complete transformation.
Remember your breath.
Remind me to breathe.
Remember that there are seeds, blanketed in the underground banks of the earth. They stay there for years. Years! It takes a fire in order to blacken the soil enough to where it persuades the sun to shine down on it’s beckoning and heat the ground…allowing the perfect conditions for these forgotten, quiet seeds to sprout.
There are silent seeds within your soul.
They will make themselves known when you encounter the fire you couldn’t put out.
I know how you tried.
You were true.
You fought.
You kept trying to save. You kept trying to be salvation for something whose form was so far beyond your own energy and capacity.
And so. You meet your limitations. You meet the things that don’t make sense. You come face to face with your own shortcoming, regrets and the things left undone.
Sit here. With me.
There is a palm branch casting a shadow on our own insignificance. It stands there, inviting us to remember what lives beneath, beyond and inside of the cycle of creation/destruction. Birth/death. There is something there. Can you sense it? Something immortal. Something eternal that moves beyond all loss. Something expansive and forgiving. Let’s rest there…in the sweet peace of what is true.
*To read part one, please see my last post HERE. To read Georgia’s take on this session please visit her HERE.
**The Holy Contradiction Project is an ongoing art project/writing exercise between myself and my very good, deep, beloved friend Georgia. Together we choose two contrasting words and create photo sessions around them, then write about those words in our life. To learn more about The Holy Contradiction Project, please read our original posts HERE
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