Sadness and Transition

I've been working with my own sense of sadness since the discussion of Sept. 6th on the great sadness someone had expressed, despite her joy over being a part of the course. Initially i felt a little perplexed as I wondered why would one feel sad over this metamorphesis.  It's exciting, exhiliarting, being on the "dawn" of the birth of a new humanity.

But then it hit me --- this vague sense of something, the next day.  Luckily my coach Roz identified this soft, sense of sadness and asked me to articulate what was going on.  And at first i wasn't really sure.  It wasn't a heavy sorrow...but a rather soft veil of something.

And then I remembered the end of a summer when I was 12 years old.  I was going to a new school that Sept.  I had spent the summer playing with all my neighborhood friends.  Playing games that we'd played throughout my childhood...the standard "stock" of games, role playing, etc......stuff we did every summer.  But this last day before the new school year there was this sense of melancholy.  A sense that all that had gone before --- all that was so familiar, that had been a staple for my childhood summer, no longer felt the same.  I felt that this child who'd always played these games was soon to be no more.  That this "way of being' was coming to an end....and that there was no going back to summer as I'd always known it.  I was leaving behind many of my summer friends to go to a new school---so I wouldn't even see them through the day as of Monday morning.  There was a sadness that this "way of being" no longer served me where I was going -- my new school.

And it was sad and bittersweet......like looking at an album of old photographs.......recalling and even reliving the feelings and experiences in each photo......but understanding that I was not that person in the photo now.  It was leaving behind a part of me in favor of moving forward to the person i was becoming.

And this is what my Wed. after ACE2 Tues. night felt like........a veil of sadness that at first I could not explain or pinpoint the source.  But when I did .....I realized there were many indicators of transformation going on around me.  Last week a cat sat next to me and gave birth to a kitten....i didn't know what was happening and next thing i knew she was picking up her tiny kitten and running off to take her to a safe place.  This week i observed a crysalis and could see the outline pattern of the butterfly wings inside.  Then the next day I encountered a newly born butterfly, sitting on the grass, slowly flapping his wings, a little wobbly, but obviously getting his barings as he was in the initial stages of experiencing his new way of being. And then there was the change in the weather --- 100degrees on Sat. and 50 degrees on Sun.......as if to say ok summer is over, Fall has begun.

Was my sadness simply empathy for all this transition, transformation.....in rhythm with the nature???  I too have been on a journey of transformation.  From corporate employee in June -- to a summer of semi-retirement -- to a fall of testing out my entrepreneurial wings.  there is no going back to who I was in June on so many levels.  So here I stand looking nostalgically back the me that I was, but a me who no longer serves the "me" I am moving towards becoming.  There is sadness and grief....but it is not heavy.  I think that grieving was done before I actually decided to set a date for leaving the job.  And it was heavy and required a lot of self care and gentleness.

This veil of sadness and grief require gentleness as well --- but the perspective is different, the sadness is not so all consuming, it is softer some how.  And the grief -- it's like a familiar friend...almost comforting to know that this is what meets me today.

Do you suppose the butterfly goes though this process.....grieving the loss of the catepillar "being" he was.  Does he emerge from the chrysalis, slowly flapping his wings, looking at the album of photo's of his old self with nostalgia and a bittersweet veil of sadness??

In my case --- I do welcome the sadness and grief -- now that I know what they're all about.  I acknowledge all that has gone before, to bring me to where I am....at the dawn of the evolution of my new self......and the dawn of the emergence of the universal humanity.

So here's to the transition from summer to fall, from old ways of being to new ways of being emerging.......to the natural rhythm of life......change & transformation are natural are organic.

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Virginia Wigle

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