Clockwork toy car

I remember the second time I attended someone's Circling Birthday Circle, featuring a kindly middle-aged and elderly lady who spent the first 10 minutes smiling with her eyes closed.

She told us that the meditation had just been so comfortable that she was floating, like she was in a deep state of meditative ecstasy.

I, on the other hand, had a hard time empathizing with her, and even started to get a little distracted.

Just as I was wondering if I wasn't focused enough, the leader also confessed that it was one of the most uncomfortable circles he'd ever been in, and that he couldn't feel the presence of the Circle Master at all, which made him restless.

My older sister said, "But I'm really comfortable.

It has been observed that your eyes are either closed or looking to the ceiling, as if you don't want to look at us.

As more and more people openly shared how they felt differently from the Circle Master, Big Sister's began to show signs of loss, and the previous red of joy on her cheeks slowly receded.

Suddenly, she began to weep, then sob.

The air seemed to freeze a bit.

But I was relieved, as if all the oxygen I'd had before was floating in a wonderland I couldn't reach, and now, as she sank, I could breathe a lot easier and felt a little closer to her.

Everyone was just accompanied by silence.

She began to cry out, "Life is so hard! Why can't you just live in the joy of meditation all the time, why are you pulling me down!"

We later found out that her husband had just died and she had lost her own job and was raising two children.

She cried until she was near powerless, sobbing, "I want to give up so badly! So good to give up ......"

The feathers floating in the air, spinning in circles and falling to the ground.

"I want to give up so badly," were the words that actually calmed her down gradually.

That image is still in my head-.

She sat bow-legged on the floor, her knees falling to the same side, her arms on either side of her body, like a drooping little girl, though her temples were a little gray.

There was no one to console, no one to parse.

"I'm so ready to give up," the words scattered through the air, and we caught it, then let it go.

Everyone is silent, perhaps all as infected as I am by her frustrated strength.

She is finally willing to fall from the clouds and into her own vulnerability.

In her vulnerability, there is dormant strength to sustain her through another life that is not always light.

Just like the wind-up toy car she loved as a child, she had to put it on the ground and pull it back a few times, and only when she let go would it trot forward.

That experience of Circling made me stop being afraid of "going backwards", and even developed an affinity with it.

I no longer worry that "wanting to give up" is a sign of weakness, and even the occasional "want to die", I can give it space.

After all, just because you allow yourself to have all the thoughts and impulses, doesn't mean you have to do them.

And it's this permission to be in the dark that makes it easier for our lives to come to light.

Like a wind-up toy car, its spurting drive comes from exactly the same feeling of cadence that comes from stepping back.

So slowly feel at ease with giving up.

It's also when we get emotional and say to our partner, without censorship, "Our international relationship is so hard, I really want to give up! I want to go back home!"

He would also occasionally say, "I'm still afraid that once I have a commitment, my life will be tied up. I'd love to run away from you!"

Similar words fall on the listener, and of course there is heartache.

But we also quickly remember that the part that speaks is not all of us.

These words are more like that birthday circle lady who lets out her grieving child and allows it to do nothing.

So we just listened to the child cry and repeat each other's words at best.

We hug, let the backward one back as far as it will go, and then take a deep breath, and when we let go-.

Not surprisingly, the wind-up toy car ran again.