Beauty in Low Places

Andrea Robinson
Sep 1, 2018 · 3 min read

Today I found myself in a sort of depression.

It seemed to come from the mysterious place which it will return to.

I didn’t judge it, try to fix it, try to think myself out of it, or even give too much into it.

I was just present with it.

Heard a song that made me cry a little.

The sensation of the tear down the cheek.

Then something interesting happened. I began to ‘listen’ to what it was there to tell me, and as soon as I did, it quickly became clearer and clearer.

My mood didn’t shift, my ‘depression’ state was still there, but within it was a really cool kind of opening — the kind of opening that delivers something that can only be delivered, and received, from being in a less-than-chipper state.

For me, that clarity was the heaviness I feel of living in this un-natural world. As I noticed this perception, I also noticed that it was really mine alone, though I also knew that I was simultaneously not alone in this.

Cars, buildings, noise, stuff, everywhere. None of it really natural, as in Nature-all. Those of us sensitives have to constantly buck-up and deal with it, but there it is, clear as day.

I believe we’re all wired differently. I’m just old enough to understand my wiring now to the point where I know with more precision what effects me — both the conceptual as well as the actual realm I’m in.

For many people, this world and all these buildings are just fine, and in fact they love them the way I love trees. I’m not here to convince people to love trees, but I am personally here to love trees, and it’s best I stop playing too many other games that distract me from that simple nature which is true for me.

I’ve been a fish who’s been forcing myself to try to be a lizard. It’s awkward for me, and awkward for everyone else too. What would happen if I just started being a fish? What would open up for me? Even if lizards make money while fish sometimes starve, and I do need to survive, it’s better to live and die as a fish, than to slowly die as a fish trying to be, or pretending to be, a lizard.

What I got from this insight wasn’t so much about me or my wiring, or my needs or wants, or conceptual or philosophical dilemmas or metaphors.

What I got from this was the understanding that sometimes to see something, we have to get down low enough to see it. The beauty of low. Saying this out loud is cliche, but it’s okay. Even cliches have something for us now and then, which is what makes them great cliches.

I experienced it as a breakthrough within a breakdown, which then takes the ‘break’ out of it completely. Depression can be a great opening when we start to deeply listen.

A new frontier doesn’t necessarily need to go up into the sky or across the horizon. Sometimes, it’s starts standing in the mud, but fish don’t tend to stand in mud too often when they have the ability to swim.

Today I was a muddy fish. An awesome, muddy fish, relishing what the mud was there to offer. Later, I went swimming in clean waters, but it was good to stay dirty for long enough to see what I needed to see.

Today was a good day.

Andrea Robinson

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Editing life has been more important than editing words. Slowly but surely, I'm learning the art of both.