Going Through the Wringer and the Feminine Path of Awakening
When you contemplate the word “spirituality,” what do you envision? More than likely, you imagine someone meditating on a mountaintop, appearing to transcend, through their dedicated and sincere practice, the ordinary cares of this world. Maybe that’s not exactly what you imagine. But for most of us, whether our roots are in Western messianic traditions or in Eastern traditions, “transcendence,” in one form or another, takes center stage. Transcendence always implies a move away from this world, and maybe also away from the worldly component of our humanity: our bodies. If you even look beyond spiritual traditions to philosophical and thought traditions, the emotions (or, the “passions”) are seen as messy, feminine, confounding forces to be overcome and mastered if one is to lead an orderly life at all.
But imagine for a moment a spirituality that is all about descending fully into this body, this world, this life, this set of imperfections. Not about floating away into some cosmic perfection, but rather sinking fully into your humanity: farts, flaws and all. A spiritual path that is not about transcending the passions, but rather about feeling them all deeply and turning them up to 11. A path of the sacred, joyous, bleeding, tender heart. After all, our bodies are the containers of our hearts. We have to drop down below what we perceive to be the “transcendent,” and even below our own brains and egos, to get to the mysterious spiritual center of the heart.
I was recently challenged very deeply by a particular set of circumstances in my life. And it’s a set of circumstances that comes on the tail end of many years of struggle and suffering in this particular life domain. In the shower this morning, I thought, “I’ve really been through the wringer on this one. My heart has been through the wringer.”
But what happens when a cloth is being wrung out? Eventually, it becomes clean. I remembered something that one of my favorite teachers has hinted at: that feminine paths of awakening are really about the heart going through the wringer. I then thought of the beloved line from Matthew 5:8 which goes, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Then I remembered one of my favorite theologians discussing the origins of that line, saying that a more faithful translation would be something more like, “Blessed are the clean of heart . . . “
Dots connecting . . .
I do not subscribe to any particular religion as an adherent, though I love finding treasures and lines from all traditions that resonate to some perennial, mystical music my heart recognizes. This is one of them. I thought I would offer this set of realizations in case it helps anyone else suffer less, or at the very least brings some modicum of meaning to their suffering. If your heart is being wrung out, it is being made clean. And the cleaner your heart is, the more readily it sees things as they really are. The more readily it sees this world as a world of very tender hearts all calling out for love in their own ways. The more readily it sees what we might call the “divine” in all things, in every human face, in every bird and every tree. I feel tempted here to say what I imagine the “divine” to be, followed by a strong internal sense of the futility of that endeavor.
If you are currently going through the wringer, I hope it helps to imagine your particular wringer as an indispensable component of your particular feminine path of awakening. I hope it goes without saying that all human beings can be on a feminine path of awakening, regardless of gender. You don’t even have to call it “feminine.” You could call it a lunar path, or a red path. The path of the passions. The path of the sacred heart.
If you were to imagine your current suffering making your heart more and more clean, how would you see things differently? How would you see the tenderness and the longing for love in all involved? Thank you for reading and for your beautiful practice.
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