If you've ever suffered from a depression, whether for a few hours, days, months or even years, you know it is a very dark place. "Just think a happy thought" people tell you. The problem is, you simply can't even remember one, let alone think about it or allow yourself the pleasure of remembering the happiness you felt. Sometimes you can be in this dark place and not even realize that is what has happened to you until you start to become aware that you're not interested in anything at all. Nothing gets or keeps your attention. You can lie in bed for hours with your eyes open and not even realize the passage of time, nor do you care that you didn't do something more useful with that time - it is as if you are completely disconnected.

I went through 18 months of this once. I started to get very scared that I would never feel anything again. I went to see a psychic, desperate for any information that could drag me back to humanity. His message to me was very simple, "Things Grow in the Dark". This gave me hope, and sometimes it is hope alone that can drag you from the dark recesses of a depression. It is something to hang on to, a lifeline. For me, things were growing in the dark - namely me. As my friend Melanie loves to say, "Trish, when you put a seed in the ground for your garden, do you brush the dirt away every 3 days and see if its doing anything?" Well, NO! So, why should I do so when I have planted my own seeds. Seeds of desire, seeds of growth, seeds of change.

The depression sucks, there's no two ways around it. If you are suffering, or have suffered, I hope the following poem will give you a different perspective. I don't believe there is anything wrong with you (or me), I believe our bodies force us to be quiet sometimes, and while this my be termed "depression" by some, perhaps it is simply the planting and stewardship of our own seeds that we are experiencing. Before you say it, I do know that there are chemical imbalances that can create horrible depressions, I am not sharing this as an "in every case generalization", as always, I am simply sharing my own experiences and the insights I have had as a result.

The following poem was shared with me by Michael McNight. I know I shared one of David Whyte's poems last week, but it seems that this particular poet is grabbing the strings of creation and experience and writing eloquently about that which is also visiting me. More and more as our capacity to manifest is increasing exponentially I am seeing the same messages come through everywhere I look.

Sweet Darkness

By David Whyte

 

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

 

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

 

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

 

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

 

The dark will be your womb

tonight.

 

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

 

You must learn one thing:

the world was made to be free in.

 

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

 

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement

of your aloneness to learn

 

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

 

is too small for you.

Enjoying the Journey! ~Trish