The Law of Opposites
The law of opposites states that to know one thing, we must first know its opposite.
Night/Day
Suffering/Joy
Confusion/Clarity
Hate/Love
Fear/Trust
Dark/Light
The old debate among the spiritual community revolved around the question: “Is the opposite of love fear or hate?
When examined closer, we realize there is no need for debate.
We only hate what we fear, and we only fear what we don’t understand.
The reverse is also true.
When we shine a light on what we don’t understand, we begin to know its truth, and we can only love what is true.
We find that to know the darkness is to know the light.
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I can still remember the first time I heard the song “Accidentally in Love” by Counting Crows.
I can almost picture myself walking out of the movie theater after seeing Shrek with my dad and sister, when Parmatown Mall was still actually a mall and had a movie theater.
But the stronger memory is of the felt-sense I had of the closing song, how the high vibration of Accidentally in Love still reverberated throughout my body. The first Shrek was released in 2001, which marks the “post period” for me. Post death of my uncle (the firecracker of the family), post parents divorce, post Dad’s nearly fatal heart attack. Every once in a while, I still had the wild feeling of love, of zest for life still in me, when my mom let me wander through the trail-less woods alone or after seeing a movie in the theater, but for the most part, this light had disappeared. So when I heard Accidentally in Love for the first time, it was more of a longing that I felt within me.
Would I ever get that feeling back?
When I decided to take a deep dive into my healing journey a few months ago, I didn’t really understand what needed healing. I didn’t know something was missing. I didn’t know how deep I would have to go into the dark. I just knew I didn’t feel how I wanted to feel, and so it really was my emotions that pointed the way.
As it turned out, it all came back to returning myself, to the joy within me. To get truly excited about the little things, to the excitement of just being alive. Allowing my imagination to once again run wild. Getting back to art and creating, just for the sake of playing.
So when Pacer and I found ourselves at Great Sand Dunes National park, paws and shoes in the sand, without thinking about it, I just followed my urge to run. Then, on the drive back, I just started to sing to the songs on the radio, without hesitation in my untrained voice.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was me returning to my light. It really all happened accidentally. Falling back in love with myself and life.
By surrendering to my darkness, I was reunited with my light.
This feeling of joy, of course, isn’t constant. For like every other human on planet earth, I suffer from the collective amnesia. I still miss the man I fell in love with over two years ago, but simply because I miss his beautiful soul, not because I miss my own (insert Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney here). Sometimes I still wake up with a sense of unease, and not giving into doubt is still a daily practice. Yet I return to the knowing that I will always be okay. I look up and see the love around me, my sister and brother-in-partnership who let me join them on full moon skis, my dog, my Sunshine, who will follow me wherever I go, my dad in his willingness to fly across country, eat “weird” vegan food , and tells me and my sister that we are his “happy thoughts”, my mom who will text me jokes on a “FriYay!”, my sibling by magic (I’m a Gryffindor, they’re a Hufflepuff) in Denver…
…”You are immensely loved” the psychic told me. For the first time, I believed this. I felt it for myself. The more I come back to this feeling, the more I remember, and the easier it is to return to a state of joy. Of gratitude. Of love. Of light.
Pic 1: Me and Pacer (Sunshine) at Great Sand Dunes National Park
Pic 2: It really is the little things…completing this puzzle with my family came with so much joy.
A Dog and Her Girl 