Taking the dive.

Going Deep

“Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.”

                                  Karen Ravn

“When a needle falls into a deep well, many people will look into the well, but few will be ready to go down after it.”

                                  African Proverb

         I have a recurring dream about a house my family lived in when I was in Junior High and High School.  It was an old house, built in the 1930’s and small for the five of us and my grandmother.  The house had six rooms, one bathroom and a dirt basement.  The basement had stairs going down, but was unfinished and on the whole, creepy—dark and dank with the sweet smell of termites.  It is to this basement that I return in my dreams.  I don’t like going there, because those were not happy days in my life.  Most of the time, I note the dream, but then push is away and don’t try to understand its meaning.  The well is too deep and dark and I don’t have the courage to go down.

         When I think of all the metaphors for going deep, I realize that’s where the good stuff is.  For many years, for instance, people searched on the surface and just below the surface of the earth for oil.  It was only when they had the courage to drill thousands of feet down that they discovered ‘gushers’.  The same thing is true of gold and diamonds—you have to go down deep in the earth to find them.

Human beings are no different.  We have to shine a light into the deep recesses of ourselves to get a full picture of who we are.  Otherwise we just spend our sweet lives skimming the surface.  Events happen around us that we react to strangely--we may feel suddenly angry or sad or afraid--and not know why.  Rather than check in with our deeper selves and ask the question, “What’s that all about?” we rush on with our busy, busy day.  We may take a pill or have a drink to numb ourselves, or find another person’s life or a cause to jump into, but we rarely take the dive.  We are afraid of the dark.

One good thing to remember when the deep calls to you is that besides the darkness, there is treasure down there.  There are more than termites in my childhood basement and more than dirt in yours.  There is gold; there are diamonds, the discovery of which will make you rich in ways you never imagined. 

                          Digging deeper,

                          Jane