Seems to me that right now, not many of us truly know what it is to be black.
I know red.
Red with anger, red with passion, red with desire...
This colour has always been close to my heart.
There is a red horse that I get on and it is taking me places.
We all have one of these red horses. We hold on to the bridle, with passion and determination, so sure of ourselves, with clarity and direction, we get on this horse and get the job done, we go for it.
I usually get so carried away with these ideas on this red horse, I end up charging into the dark forest and I come off it just as I reach the swamp. Covered in mud, tired, broken and beaten up, I desperately want to get out of there. No longer am I craving for the red horse, there is no blood boiling inside. All I want is a clean pillow, blissful sunshine, the dappled light through my window and love, connection - all these wonderful spiritual words many of us have been chewing on for so long, we bleached the white so badly, the cotton is beginning to rip, it is an existential rapture.
For many years, I would drag my broken body out of that swamp, wasting no time to the darkness.
Who wants to be in the abyss, ‘black moods’ are not popular are they?
It is a dramatic story to tell, yet truth is, it was always easy to get out.
Rusty hooks with chewed up affirmations were hanging over the swamp and I would pull myself on and emerge, proud with my wounds. It never occurred to me these wounds were from the hooks themselves, to push through the darkness and walk to the other side, deep into that black forest of my soul. Always in a rush to get out, off to my white sheets, bleaching and washing, namaste.
And every time, between the raptures on the white, the darkness welcomed me again.
This time, rather then fighting it, I let myself go in...I dive deep into the darkness...my wounds open up, the pain leaks out, the memories scratch onto my skin and I go down, deeper into darkness, deeper into the abyss. The swamp is my bath and my tears, black rain covers all the land in complete darkness.
Further I go, the less strength I have to fight it, my red blood once a memory, is no longer even on the palette, all is black...so black, so juicy, so beautiful. I find letting go is not a white cloud endeavour, I let go into the blackness. I eat the blackness, I feed my soul with it and hear myself saying, the world is filled with broken pieces of souls, I wonder how many belong to me.
“The world is filled with broke pieces of souls I wonder how many belong to me “
And I no longer see, I find seeing and knowing are not processes I am able to initiate within myself...listening, listening with all my senses, that is what I am, a listener.
And I listen, to myself, to those pieces of my soul, I listen and I listen and I feel it...there will be no hooks pulling me out, I have gone too deep for it this time. I have been broken on thousand pieces and I have no urge to put myself together. These hooks won’t reach me. I have fed myself darkness, I have embraced that black space, I am it...!
I am the Black Rider, black rider on a black horse.
This horse has no bridle, no reins to hold on to...the horse is leading me and when I am ready...I drop...the way to my light is not up, I go down on my knees to get to it. I have black earth under my nails.
I look at the sunshine.
My soul is black
My spirt white
My blood is red
My skin stripped down
I feel so raw....my heart is dancing through it all
And I write and wonder, I wonder on these ancient colours, older than time. Colours we have forgotten to listen to, colours we have simplified to a palette on our computers, colours we have begun to use as a way to judge and hurt each other with. I wonder, could it possibly be that we experience so much colour judgment because we have forgotten how to be black, in the Black.
We have taken preference to something we are not allowed to chose from. We have ripped apart an ancient union, Black, White, Red. We have arrested the ‘ascetic arrest’ and dressed it up to our liking.
The west has taken white and enlightenment to a whole other level. All darkness, oddness, otherness, all has been pushed aside. We have forgotten it is ours and that it belongs to those around us, to the world. We preoccupy ourself with positive thinking, empty conversations.
We ask people how they are and don’t even wait for their reply. We go blank when someone begins to talk about their emotions, and letting them go to the dark place is not an option, not in our presence.
We have forgotten how to grieve. For sure, no one could take us to the black place and no one could go there with us, but we could promise to each other to wait on the other side.
We could let ourselves go, we could en-courage each other!
Because sometimes, it is not okay, it is not going to be okay, and it is not alright, not until we get into the Dark Forest of our soul and feed on the blackness.
Not until we say yes to being black.
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