the eclipse + the void
a 2024 summer series | pt. i
Y’all, it’s been a weird summer. Weirdly long, and yet short, filled with tiny bits of good news and a whole lot of bad. It’s been incredibly hot and humid - I’ve developed ear allergies that seem to only be made worse by this fact - and so, it’s felt like, rather than living my best life this summer, I’ve just been trying to get by. And now, months have passed me by. And I still don’t know quite what to make of it. So I guess what I’m making is another rapid-fire catch-up series of posts that will come out over the next couple of weeks.
Because a lot of you know me, I’m hoping you’ll find some value in what is basically just my personal story. It seems that a lot of us are stuck somewhere in the messy middle, just trying to make our way out, and as the cliche goes, it’s nice to know we’re not alone. This is a story of feeling lost, feeling more lost, and then, slowly, making one’s way back. It’s a story of doubt and belief. It’s a story about seeking presence. It’s a story about occasionally finding it, too.
As I complete my final edits on this post, I’m laying on the floor of my Hideaway, amber candle lit, magazines and journals cut up and strewn about, a freshly-beaded bracelet awaiting a little super glue to make sure it holds together. The ground outside is covered in beautiful fallen leaves. I’m coming back to myself, doing things that feel simple, good, natural, and healing. Making time to sit and process has been a vital ingredient towards getting here; hitting publish is just another step towards fulfillment. So, after months of living, and weeks of writing…here goes!
For those of you who may not know me, I’d like to start at the beginning:
Six years ago I started working at the coolest place - a writers’ colony just down the road from our farm. It was a perfect situation: it granted me confidence in my own writing, it offered an opportunity to share my passion with others, and at the end of the day, I felt like I was really putting something good out into the world. I was growing into the woman I wanted to be, and it felt like magic. (If you’re reading this and you’re one of the writers I met during these last few years, thank you so much for being a part of my journey and please know that I truly loved and appreciated being a part of yours.)
Two years in, I was laid off during Covid. Looking back, that period of time in early August 2020 was meant to be a new start. I was meant to take time for myself, dream big dreams, and begin anew. I took a trip to Paducah, KY with my husband and worked hard on branding my blog, writing a series of posts (old habits die hard), and plotting out my next creative steps. But the honors student inside me refused to be unemployed, and I ended up working part-time at a coffee shop instead. Over the year that I worked there, I slowly started resuming some of my duties at the colony. I held onto the promise of returning full-time so tightly, refusing to believe that I could do anything else, until eventually, I was right back where I’d started - which was great!
Except nothing was ever really the same after that. Witnessing how quickly things could change, I lived in an ever-present state of fear and anxiety, knowing that this return could be stripped away from me at any time. It wasn’t rare to hear, “We don’t know what the next year holds,” as a sort of warning for what I already knew. Yet I refused to believe what I knew. I only wanted to believe in the writers’ colony, and I would continue to hold on with every bit of strength I could muster, even if I should’ve been running away.
It was March or April of this year when I began to admit to myself that I’d had enough. Much as I loved the business and what we did, it was coming time to leave, and whether it was my choice or someone else’s, my days were going to be numbered.
I began to seek new beginnings.
Because I like to believe in the power of the universe, or God, or fate, or whatever, I turned to tarot cards and astrological readings to assist me in my process. Everything I consumed seemed to be pointing towards a major shift around the eclipse. (hey! remember the eclipse??) I had a promising interview about a week before that, and truly believed that that would be the case. (That, or the end of the world, as some were saying around that time. ha!)
But the eclipse came and went, and it was breathtaking and beautiful and powerful….and still, I waited. About a week later, I wrote these words, which so actively capture where I was in that moment - how perplexed, how hopeful, how desperate for meaning:
It was 3:08 pm and the air was becoming noticeably cooler, the dusky lighting strange. We all put on our glasses and watched, trying to time it perfectly as we counted down to the moment. I wasn’t quite sure how it would go. Was this it? Was that? When suddenly, the light of the corona burst out from every side of the moon, the crowd erupted in cheers, jumping up and down, laughing, crying, shouting, in utter AWE.
We removed our glasses and stared at its brilliance. The four minutes over which it took place felt like far less time than the two minutes we’d counted down. The sensation was all-encompassing - there was a largeness, and a smallness, and heart pounding, and tear streaming, and hugs, and failed attempts to take photos, followed by realizations that photos just didn’t matter. And then, it was a diamond ring, and the sun came back, and all was as it had been, yet entirely changed.
It’s hard to be preoccupied when you’re staring at a total eclipse. It looks like a black hole in the sky. It’s odd. It’s unanticipated. You can see all the pictures and visual demonstrations in the world, but nothing will ever hit quite the same as seeing that moment for yourself. And then, once it passes, it feels impossible to know what to do next.
And so here we are, in the void. I recently learned about the concepts of orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. When we’re oriented, everything feels just fine - as it should be. Disorientation hits when we least expect it, throwing us into sorrow or frustration. But eventually, a new orientation arises in which we find ourselves in a new normal. We can no longer go back to who we were; we are changed.
Sometimes I think about who I was before 2020. That year marks so much for me - for all of us, I’m sure. It was a worldwide disorientation from which arose a new orientation….but smaller disorientations are happening all the time.
I feel like it’s rare for me to feel oriented. I spend a lot more time in the chaos and confusion. But for a brief moment, the eclipse lifted me into a state that was - when I truly put words to it - nothing. It was nothing and everything. Pure joy. Pure presence. Zero expectations. Complete fulfillment. For those 4 minutes, everything was just as it should be.
Someone told me that it might be great moments of happiness that lead us most into states of disorientation. The high is lost and we’re desperately seeking the next thing. While I thought the culmination of the eclipse might bring about an immediate newness to my life…it didn’t. Or at least, it hasn’t yet.
But that’s okay, because that’s life. There is beauty all around, and learning to recognize it and simply let it be is the path towards something deeper within us. It’s a learning and an unlearning. An acceptance of mystery. It may be a message from the heavens, or it may just be a really cool thing that happened one time. Perhaps the process of accepting this is a new orientation all in itself.
What met me after the glory of the eclipse was just this - a new orientation of disorientation - a void. The job offer didn’t come. I had to reach out myself weeks later to find out that someone else had been a better fit. And so, as a loyal employee who really needed to maintain her paycheck, I stayed. I worked even harder. And my body began to ache with more than muscle pain. My sense of self continued to decline. I fought the continued bouts of poison ivy rashes and bug bites. I slathered on sunscreen. I lived in fear. I lived in anger. I lived in frustration. I was tired and unhappy most all of the time. I didn’t know what I wanted, except that I knew I wanted to work there and yet I couldn’t. I had lived the last 6 years in an undeniable state of belief, but slowly, surely, it was slipping away from me.
Screw the tarot cards. Screw the stars. Maybe the big shift wasn’t the one I expected, but it was the one that I could no longer deny, one that would emanate through my entire summer.
…more to come on Thursday