It gets worse before it gets better. There's a huge valley beneath each mountain. While it's getting worse, you're convinced it's always getting worse. While descending, it feels as if you were always descending. The greatest deceit is that which convinces you the lie is the truth. You feel like a fool for ever believing in ascension.
That's depression. Wandering through the dark wooded valley unable to see the mountains all around you, ashamed you were ever fooled into having hope. You're convinced hope was the trick and this present state of emptiness is reality. But you have no sense of perspective down there.
Only a fool believes her and his memory is reality. Recollection depends upon the mental faculty of whom is recalling. Memory is illusive in that darkness. Your senses do deceive you. Don't contemplate and don't make big decisions from that narrow vantage point.
Keep moving. A ship facing the wrong direction must begin moving in the wrong direction before slowly turning around. To give up is the only wrong direction. The wind, that unrelenting breath of life, is always on your side.
Find the night sky through the thick shadows of despair. Remember the horizon with its sunsets and mountain peaks? Remember? The valley is a small part of the whole, and the whole is much bigger than your wildest imagination, much bigger than memory, much bigger than the misperception of those five senses.
Beyond the chemistry of the brain, you have the power of transformation within you. Harness that unrelenting breath which formed the stars from formless space. Harness that unrelenting breath which forms life from stardust.
Don't make a home down there in the shadows. Don't succumb to the lie. Do not wander aimlessly, and for God's sake do not stop moving!
Be mindful of cycles. Minute by minute, hourly, daily, by the moon, by the solstices, and by the 11-year cycle of the sun, all things are cyclical in space and time. No one is immune to the cycles of life, and you may be particularly susceptible to these cycles.
Awareness is your greatest ally. Notice each thought and how it arrives seemingly from nowhere. Who’s thinking these thoughts anyways? Who’s leading this lonesome journey?
Do not spin out, and do not continue in circles. No matter the dark moon, find the North Star. Keep in one direction. It does not matter which direction. The way out is everywhere. The mountains are all around you.
“Towards Ojai” - 2021 Photo taken by the author