When We Sense Something's Missing

“Every human being senses an inner longing that goes deeper than the longings for emotional and creative fulfillment… a feeling or sensing that another, more fulfilling, state of consciousness and a larger capacity to experience life must exist.”

–Eva Pierrakos

There’s a place you’ve slipped into. Not a physical space, not out there somewhere, but deep down on the inside. It’s an eerie environment. A realm of shadows where the wind carries high the howling of wolves. It’s unpleasant there. There’s no sun to warm your bones, no flowers to scent the air, no reasons to spread a smile. Instead, there is coldness - - breezes that bite ice into your skin, darkness with fangs that vampirize your hopes.

Did you get there awake, alert, aware? Or did you simply drift in as you slipped into sleep? One thing we know: whether wakeful or dreaming, the goddess Oizys has shown she can reach you.

The goddess Oizys? (Did you Google that name? I can sense your wheels turning and grinding…) Let’s not get hung up on literalism vs. metaphor. The experience I describe is firmly a feeling. You’ve felt it and faced it, denied it, erased it, then tried moving on, but it moved along with you.

I’m referring to is a state of mind called disenchantment or disillusionment.

Peel open the Oxford dictionary, and you’ll find that disillusionment is “a feeling of disappointment from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.” Leaf through a few more pages, and you’ll see that disenchantment is a “feeling of disappointment about someone or something you previously respected or admired.” Now, close your books so I can ask you some questions: What does your disappointment taste like? What flavor is your let-down? In what ways has it imposed? - - pushing its way into your heart with shoves and sharp elbows.

Years ago, it ambushed me. While in my apartment, shuffling about from one room to the next, doing chores, lost in thought, I suddenly stopped and stood still as a statue. The emotional ground beneath my feet began to shift and shake, and with volcanic release an idea was born. Instantly, I was covered over with the ash of realization that, for me, life had lost its magic. It was flat in its meaninglessness, dull in its repetitiveness. An essential something was missing, and I couldn’t think my way to a solution. The problem was inaccessible to the mind. There were no roads, bridges, or landing strips to reach it. The only approaches were to swim or sail through the fluid realm of intuition. But those waters were choppy because I’d yet to learn how to trust my soul’s compass.

What a twisted contradiction! On the one hand, I saw life as inherently miraculous. But on the other, it seemed practically lifeless. This was a strange sort of crisis where, spiritually, I was a zombie - - not quite living, but not entirely dead either. I found the whole thing absurd and felt offended at my core. Consider the universe, its magnitude, the sheer improbability of it all, the billions of years that it took to coalesce into infinite forms of beauty and unfathomable complexity— given all of that—and more! —how could life feel so utterly humdrum, stale, artificial? The question oppressed me. I felt alienated. Alone.

Years went by, but eventually grace found me. As Fortune’s Wheel turned, so too did my circumstance. And now when I write it’s with the force of conviction that life holds gifts and blessings you don’t know of; that somewhere backstage, behind the scenes of your awareness, there’s a hidden coordination paving the way for your progress.

Now stop. Scroll up. Read the quote atop this post. How does it make you feel? Does any of it ring true? If so, the question becomes: what now will you do? A more “fulfilling state of consciousness,” a “larger capacity to experience life” - - these issues are fundamental, and they suggest that what’s at stake is of the highest importance: the day-to-day experience of the quality of your being.

What is your state from moment to moment? The mist of sensations you move through, sleep in, wake up from - - in what ways would you describe it? Once you’ve put away your vision boards, snuffed out your smudge sticks, blown out your candles, what facts of feeling remain? Many embrace the occult - - spell-work of all kinds - - but the principal magic, in my view, is the alchemy of the mind.

Ponder the possibilities. Reorient your outlook. Reevaluate what’s important. Wisdom dawns slowly, but never is it late. Where you are you’re meant to be, but there are places for you to go. It’s time to prepare. Your travels await you.