Open Eyes, I feel ... overwhelmed in the sadness of your sadness in my reading your post. I feel the need for a mind-picture ...a huge ball of old, tattered and tangled string with you caught in one of the wrap arounds on the inside while crying, 'Help'. I see myself hearing you and reaching in through a tiny hole in the hope of pulling you through in making a rescue. I feel baffled and have the need to dial 9-1-1 but am little, like you, and don't have the 'number.'

So I sit on the outside of the ball and whittle a bigger hole to see you inside. Let's pretend: you become smaller under the pressure that is holding you down. That's it, smaller and smaller until the ball has less hold on you. The twigs and dirt and placement of the string has no interest to you anymore now that you have felt some wiggle room.

Just pretend. The ball is too big for you to unravel from the inside or out, and is not of your making or liking anyway. You are tiny with tiny thoughts and don't have to pretend to be large with large thoughts. Can you hear my voice in there? Can you climb a little closer to the outside light coming in?

The place you once held in the ball doesn't fit you anymore. In my mind's eye, I see you and watch how you've wiggled freer than you once were and are now crawling towards the light. You are not fitting into the ball as you once were. The ball, however, is solidly formed whether you are caught in it or not. It doesn't need you as a place-holder. You cannot unravel the ball. Just crawl towards the light as you make yourself smaller and smaller from the place you once held in the ball. The ball is not true power. It is just a ball of discarded string, knotted together in barely holding on. It serves no useful purpose. Keep your eyes on the light and move towards the light. Inch by inch.

The place you once held in the ball is intact without you. The place you once held in the ball is not what you wanted. It held you down. You need air, freedom, light to grow as you are designed. The ball of string is a ball of string, tangled without any possibility of bounce or usefulness. Smaller and smaller you become so you can crawl towards the light.

Inch by inch you are making progress. Smaller and smaller you become: you no longer fit in and under the ball's many strings. You are able to move under and over and through the tunnel of your own making as you crawl towards the light. Almost there.

I see your head, and a hand moving you forward. And a roll of your shoulders. And another inch forward. It is not as dark as it once was for you. I yell, "Do you want to come out, completely out?" and you say, "Yes, I think I do but I don't know what to do once I am out." And I say, me neither. All I know is to keep finding the light. A new identity awaits. Keep breathing better air. Keep on keeping on towards the light. The new air will give you amnesia as long as you stay away from the hole in the ball. Moving freely in the fresh air of will reveal your own design. Begin small. You will grow taller and taller within the light. One. Moment. At. A. Time. One moment. At. A. Time. One moment at. A. Time. One moment at a. Time. One moment at a time. One movement towards the light one moment at a time.

You are out. Set free: your mind is a blank slate. Today has enough 'sugar plums dancing in the air for your taking. What do those sugar plums look like to you? Just you? Mine look different than yours. Isn't that great! Let's not compare, but enjoy. Let's celebrate power as a source that is bigger than our own making or that of anyone else's when viewed in the dark. Let the light of today be the power leading to hope...and the wonder of that is ALWAYS yet to be discovered.

In this moment, there is nothing to leave behind and yet everything to be found.

Onward! to your design of your own making within the light within the light; one morsel of awakening at a time. Look to the Light. The Light. The Light.

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This came to me while in my meditative mode. For what is it worth./hermit