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I said i was going to do some writing today, and i will. Mu fingers are on the computer keyboard while my eyes wait to see what appears on the page. The preceeding sentence(s) is(are) what has appeared during the past half hour.
Monday (six days ago) it started to snow heavily and i crawled into my squirrel hole. I am still there, sticking my head out once in a while to check for newspaper or mail. Wednesday, i did not go to the homeless shelter which was my only firm committment during the week. Inside my "hole" i haven;t done much.
The best way i can characterize my "mood" over the last week is that i feel empty. Emptiness is an interesting feeling, neither bad nor good. It feels like total acceptance of whatever is or seems to be. At the same time it feeks hollow, like it should be filled with "something."
Contemporary Taoist practice sees emptiness as the essential nature of my True Self, and a major goal is for me to realize it. Well, i think i realize it.* Now what? Also, i am fairly recently widowed and a "Dianne shaped hole," has openned up inside me. I suppose that this is part of the grieving proceess and cannot be expected to last. Emptiness certainluinly does not feel like bliss, but then i don't know what it is supposed to feel like. But emotions are as ephemeral as thoughts and not part of the True Self.
I think that the main thing that is missing might be ego. I feel it whining pitifully in the background but it no longer has the power to claim it is me. or at least not my True Self. I have prayed to the Tao for emptiness and to my 12-step Higher Power for "relief from the bondage of self." Could thos prayers be being answered? I shall see.
Incidently, empty used to mean ""leisure," (Old English aementa) and before that "to take appropriate measures" (PEI. med-). Med- gives us a plethora of words including medicine, remedy, modify, accomodate, and meditate.
If i am correct, and this is part of a spiritual transformtion, i should soon see the void start to fill with compassion and wisdom. Otherwise, it is still not too late to start over.
* Thanks in large part to reading Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, 2005