And then, "trying to sleep," I went thru a rosary of moritfications & humiliations. Funny. I was stuck in my head running a film-strip of a continuous loop of life-events that put me, my being, my personality, in the worst light. It was like a ritual shaming. Every last thing that played in my head made me feel worse. I relived a long series of failures over my lifetime. It was a shattering of my Ego. Stuck in a hall of mirrors of fucked-up-ness.
It was humbling. I crashed in the darkness. Funny. I could not conjure up any of the "good times," or successses in my life. It was just a long slog of phoniness, failure and futility. I finally turned from this hell of consciousness and fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up, I was totally, completely, truly, madly, deeply, empty & clear.
I felt like a ceramic mug that had shattered into a million pieces on the floor. I had to slowly put the pieces back together. There were jagged edges and cracks eveywhere. I have slowly day by day come back to life, one breath, one step at a time. I have been a bit quieter, a bit more gentle and tentative with myself and others. I threw myself into the things of the day: playing music, writing songs, collaborating with our band. The key move was to step out of my deep self-consciousness, into a consciousness of the Universe of things.
Sure, it was a bit of an Ego Death. I now think of it as a necessary cleanse. The images and scenes that destroyed me, no longer seem to have their power or zing. The dust clears: I am here. Still ticking. Ha. That's life. Maybe a deflated, more shrunken Ego means more room for the rest of the Universe to find a place in my being? Yeah, sure, let's go with that idea.
