Over and over again. The cycle from entropy to beauty. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had moments where I felt “quiet”. Days sometimes and now that I look back on it, maybe even months and years. This shadow of quietness enveloped me like a blanket. I called it quiet because I didn’t know what else to call it. I felt like… well I felt like there was something really deep going on inside and I wasn’t sure how to navigate it so it came to me as a desire for quietness. Internal quietness. Oftentimes though, that led me to seek out external quietness as well because I felt that it didn’t feel okay for me to be participating in the external world when I was in these quiet states. 

Throughout my life, this state of quietness became fixed within me as a deep numbness because of my conditioning about this quiet state over time. I also know that this quiet state that I was experiencing was actually a beautiful contraction of my energy inwards, making me less available to the external world because my field was taking me into the process of creation. The aliveness, freshness and spark of joy that is ignited when something new is created.

Many times along this journey of cycling between my quietness and my expression, I came across people and places and circumstances in which I felt challenged by being in a state of quietness. I started to be questioned, to question myself, “what was wrong?” “Was I okay?” “Why did I seem so quiet?” “Usually I’m so happy and joyful and uplifting, but today something seems off, am I tired?” “Are you okay?” “You seem off.” “You’re not your usual self.” “Is there something wrong with you?”

I bounced back and forth between wanting to hide and be away from these people and forcing myself to pretend like I wasn’t feeling this inner quietness. I bounced back and forth between trying to ignore and suppress this inner quietness and trying to distract myself from it in any way possible, sending a text, eating something, calling someone, going out somewhere, etc. 

What I really needed was to be alone and gently nourish myself in a loving, creative way. Channeling the quietness. Allowing the quietness. Accepting the quietness. Embracing the quietness. But instead I basically ingested this deep sense of something being wrong with me. And I decided to use my logical mind, my intellect, to solve my problem. To figure out what was wrong so I could express it. To attach a reason to it so that I could give others something to chew on so they’d leave me alone or so they wouldn’t reject me. To take back control over my life by thinking that I could resolve this process by “solving my problem”. None of it worked. 

Also looking back over time, I can see now that what worked was art.

If I had dance practice that night, things seemed to end up being better than they were beforehand. If I had art class that day in school, things brightened up a bit as I immersed myself into the wheel, the sewing machine, the canvas, whatever it was. If I wrote in my journal for a while, colored for a bit, painted something. Even cooking at times. Anything that I could channel myself into, focus my mind on and allow the quietness to draw me inwards towards myself, it all helped. Helped me to touch the beautiful brilliance of the bright light that lived inside of me. It helped me to be able to allow this quietness to be a part of my life. 

Sometimes I couldn’t do these things or didn’t feel like doing them, which was another level of the stress that added to me wanting to solve the problem and be rid of it. However, what developed out of these times was a natural gravitational pull towards learning something new about myself in order to feel less like there was something wrong and more like there was a reason for all of this that was greater than me. I was embracing the journey of self-discovery. It was enlightening. The light would spark a flame once again with each dive into learning about my chakra system, aura, astrology, human design, gene keys, yoga postures to support me in times of low energy, etc etc etc. 

It was all that I could do to support myself in those low times where I didn’t know what was “wrong” with me but I felt like something was happening that needed space to happen. It took until my mid-twenties for me to consistently embrace it. After a few years I was able to recognize it but not without deep reflection into my own creative process supplemented by what I was learning about my genetic imprint. I was experiencing entropy. Entropy, to me, is the contraction before the expansion of creative energy. Entropy is the darkness that engulfs everything in its vacuum so that special care and attention can be given to this process of tapping into the light within. 

Some days, I just needed to be quiet. And up until recently it has never felt okay. It’s easy to see how this could end up seeming like depressive moods or depression if it carries on for long enough. At different periods in my life it did become fixed into depression. And that was really hard for me. I no longer felt like I was inspired to do anything. I felt like my life didn’t really have value and so I was chasing, internally, after anything that I could do, achieve, accumulate, experience, that would prove to me that my life had value. But honestly … the lesson I needed to learn, am still continuously learning and deepening into, is that I am valuable because I exist. And if something provides value to me then it is valuable. What I couldn’t see at that time, was how connected we truly all are. How everything that one person does sends a ripple effect out through the whole world. How my one action in relation to the world or another sets up a series of chain reactions to influence the energy of our collective. 

Honestly it took me so long to realize it. And it didn’t happen from thinking about it. It happened in the studio, moving my body, working through rehearsals in my creative process. All of the things I’d been learning about and diving into, obsessing over and allowing myself to indulge in – they started to click the more I moved my body and allowed myself to enter into a state of receptivity. Being receptive to what was happening in the moment. What I was chasing after was not needed. It was crowding my space. I didn’t need to know what was wrong with me. There was absolutely nothing wrong. My energy was withdrawing, it was unavailable for external expression in those times because I was being prepared. I was preparing. For the creative impulse. For that spark of light, the moment of joy, the idea that comes seemingly out of nowhere. And instead of being unsure of how to allow this process, I recognized that I was developing a ritual that would support me to honor this process. 

I was learning how to enter into my own creative ritual which allowed me to let the cycle transform. I was learning that, for me, these cycles of entropy can transform through silence, movement and stillness. It didn’t get fixed because I was holding space for it to flow and to change. As I reflect now I realize that I need to honor the unpredictable flow of my energy. Sometimes it’s low and withdrawn and that makes me feel low and flat and sad and quiet. And sometimes it is high and super available, the sparks are flying and the fire catches allowing me to shine my creative light out into the world. They both need each other. As much as I wish I could stay in that joyful, sparks-flying mode and live there forever, it is not possible. It is not possible for any of us. As the universe flows within and around us, the energy changes to accommodate the expansion of our own journeys. This cannot happen without contraction. And my biggest lesson is that there is nothing wrong with the contraction. My goal is to see the beauty in it, to really be able to recognize it and honor it. I wonder what sparks might fly as I continue to do so. 

You see, for me I feel that it’s about the difference between where we seek. I spent so much time seeking externally and I still do. Seeking the place I am to live, the studio who I can do a residency with, the venue for my next tour, my next collaborator, my dream producer, an astrology reading, an energy healing, a yoga teacher, a retreat center, a hug, a kiss, a feeling of love, an adoring partner, a new friend, a happy feeling. And the list goes on. 

So naturally, over time, this seeking has disappointed me. It hasn’t met up with my expectations and it has kept me seeking eternally. Stressed about how no matter what I do it never seems to fulfill me on that deep level. The closest things have been being in the studio rehearsing and performing with Two Can Do and my deep dives into my own self via self-discovery tools. 

And honestly showering helps. Coloring helps. Writing really helps. Spending time by myself helps. Sleeping or taking a nap helps. Going swimming or to the beach or to walk in nature helps. So it’s not like there are no supports. It’s just that they aren’t remedies. They aren’t curing it, resolving it, solving the problem. And so the real work for me was realizing that there weren’t any because there isn’t any need to actually solve the problem. Because there is no problem. 

Maybe I’m going in circles now, but what I am processing and wishing to express is my journey through these cycles and how I have learned to honor them. To honor the withdrawal, the unavailability of my energy to the external for whatever amount of time so that I can recharge, reconnect with the internal light and spark that ignites the passion of my creativity once again. 

In a world that is not built to honor these cycles, it has had me feeling like a stranger, unwanted and unneeded. It has been really sad for me and at times I’ve felt stuck, like there won’t be anything else other than this. But then, somehow, someway, it changes. The light emerges and I feel more able to be out in the world again. More optimistic and lighter. Well… essentially I feel that my life’s journey has taken me on the winding roads of awareness as they open up to me being more and more aware of these cycles. As the awareness expands, I am learning to allow it more and accept that this cycling is a part of who I am. And it’s okay. It’s more than okay. It is purposeful. It is necessary. It is beautiful. And still sometimes it doesn’t feel okay. I’m opening up and expanding with that. Channeling my attention into something that nourishes the withdrawal is what has helped over time. So this is what I will continue to do. And this, for me, is the cycle from entropy to beauty. From contraction to expansion. From the void to creation.

Talk soon,

B-