Sadness and Longing

[watergaze]

Sadness and Longing... these two emotions accompany a sorcerer like two friends and steer him towards Spirit, knowledge, and learning. They go hand in hand often because one feels sadness due to not having what one is longing for - to simplify A LOT heh. As we grow on the path or gain more understanding of our experience, I think we will all find that sadness is not just about us and does not only occur in link to our lives and problems we or those around us face.
Both emotions (sadness and longing) share a base of similarities that I want to focus on and therefore I will talk about them together in general.

There were times in my life where the longing/sadness actually hurt. A lot. Now I am of the opinion that the clearer the conduit I am for Spirit (this is a different topic but in short one needs to de-bs oneself as much as possible ), the less hurt I get from strong emotions (for example beauty was another one that mixed with pain). DJ said that warriors cry tears of blood out of sadness. I can understand that .

This reminds me of our chat where serloco mentioned that crying releases pain and curses from the body. It releases other emotions too - like sadness. NM noted the term pressure in this context. Crying releases pressure. In some sense many things that utilize our energy release pressure. But if one indulges too much in anything that uses our energy, like crying can if it is overdone, it can make one tired. So, yea, the body may react by tiredness to crying, especially if it takes a long time (but not all bodies react the same). Another way how to release sadness is laughter. That one is not as tiring (though it can result in us feeling the stomach area muscles for some days if we laugh really hard and long heh). And it has the side effect of cheering everyone, including ourselves, up - that can be nice too sometimes. Knowing sadness somehow also enables us to have more laughter in our lives because we can cherish good things and be thankful. Both crying and laughter link to our souls (and bodies). Both can be soothing. There is nothing wrong with crying or laughing. Both are good and valuable expressions (and both can be used to express bent things too of course). Indulging is where I would see the crux of the problem. I have come to a stage where if I indulge in say self-pity and cry for a minute or two (I kid you not a minute is all it takes), I feel the effects (which are not nice) of it sometimes for days on my body. I have always used my body as a compass, it tells me what is healthy and what is not. A different type of crying, one out of beauty or pure emotions (not mixed with self-pity and other plagues) does not have the same effect.
DJ suggests a release method of rolling one's eyes. The eyes are indeed a great tool for a sorcerer that can be utilized on many occasions. I would add to that also that energetic movement of the body can also break the spell of sadness.

Do we need to stop or change when we feel sadness and longing? I do not have an answer for you, as in it is situation and person specific. Plus sadness is a pure/raw emotion and there are forms that it can mix with that are forms of sadness - sadness with other layers mixed in and these then have different co-causes and also different co-effects on us. Consider melancholy, loneliness, depression, grief, regret, self-pity, etc. All are compounds and one element of them is sadness.
I would say then that sometimes when we might want to utilize these methods to break sadness is if it takes these less pure forms (in the sense of alchemical purity) and do that in order not to indulge, or if we have not de-bs-ed ourselves enough and can't take the sadness anymore. The way I experienced sadness 20 years ago was so fundamentally different than how I experience it now that it is nothing short of a miracle what this emotion can be like.
To take the example of regret, I find that a warrior does not indulge regret but instead uses his or her energy and will to learn from it and change so that the behavior he would otherwise just regret does not happen. Although these feelings already add a layer to sadness, they still can be transmuted and do the things sadness does for us… if our intent is such. (Am I saying regret is bad? Of course not! All emotions have a purpose, they signal and speak to us. They give us guidance. What I am saying is not to indulge. Take the message and gift of the emotion and move on. If I start to feel regret, I look at it, 'commune' with it /'talk' to it, and learn and change and move forward. It is like a helpful person that one meets on the road. One talks with it, listens to the message they have for us, thanks them, and then moves on taking the message with them but not the messenger. Sometimes we need to stay a bit longer to really hear and understand the purpose of the meeting, that is all good and does not mean one is indulging. Indulging is if one overstays one's welcome and usually has consequences on our well-being and energy levels.
Similarly, we can mention aspects linking to sadness like sorrow and depression. these feelings have a purpose too. Not to be wallowed in but to help us change and grow. To realize things we need to leave behind. Sadness is also natural before changing things. A sorcerer sometimes leaves things behind (objects, beings, hopes, dreams, wishes, opinions, world views, etc. and these can link to the past, present or future) and it is natural if after the decision to do so one feels a bit of sadness. It is a period of transition of preparation for the next stage. It is a saying goodbye and natural. If we have been attached to something in the past and going to sever this attachment then we can mourn for it for a minute before letting it go. And then one moves on. In this sense, sadness helps us activate the change we are striving for. It is the last step of moving forward to a new setting.

Sadness can disarm some people, sometimes in good ways, sometimes not so good - again links to specific people and situations. Although sadness can paralyze some people into wallowing in bs (which is why the process of de-bs-ing is so important), it actually is an emotion that has a very practical function for sorcerers. On more levels.
For one, longing/sadness can drive us to seek out Spirit. But not just that... while we might feel that we become heavy with sadness we can transmute it and actually have it help us rise up. I remember a radio interview in which a shaman spoke on this topic... I will put part of the radio interview below (listen to the song and then the talk links to it, it was a radio talk).
How does one transmute it? Remember that a sorcerer does not really need to know how . It is great and helpful if one knows how, but one can get there without understanding it all too. (How is a question of the mind not intent). But the prerequisites are of course self-work and being able to expand, open up, allow oneself to be carried on the wings of sadness. Sadness and Longing have an inherent link to our soul and spirit. And they lead us into the unknown. They can of course also create pressure and push us forward that way heh. They can foster a love of/for learning and knowledge. They can strengthen it and they can guide it.
DJ told CC that it is natural for sorcerers to feel sadness. That there is sadness floating about in the world (unrelated to specific things in our lives) and we as warriors are more sensitive (having lost many of the typical defenses that ordinary men have) and feel it. DJ links sadness to eternity. To face sadness is to face eternity. Out there, the vast out there. It also links to facing being alone, one surely needs to come to terms with that even if one does not have to be alone. But this is another subject altogether. One can also say that our bodies /minds make sense of eternity by feeling sadness. Transmuting the unknown into something known that can link to it. Eternity and the unknown exert pressure on us, sadness is calmer and more bearable in that sense but still retains qualities of where it comes from / what it links to.

It is not surprising then that sadness links also to silence. Because our mind cannot attach things to it (if we have de-bs-ed ourselves enough), it goes silent. When the sadness comes from eternity not from us to fill it with our personal problems ID… but somehow even then I found I enter silence.
So, yea, it helps me be in the present moment, in silence. It also brings creativity, expressions of song, poetry, etc. It touches the soul and the spirit and sparks creativity.
One more effect that sadness has is something like a softening. Some emotions come along with sharpness/harshness or explosiveness, or other settings, sadness softens. It aids the development of empathy and understanding of other beings around us. It aids in connecting to our surroundings and the many peoples that live on this earth (shamanically speaking: animal people, little people, sky people, etc.). DJ talked of kindness. I totally second that. Sadness fosters kindness.

Moving on, sadness makes me aware of my own greatness. Because I can feel it and it is expansive and I expand with it. If one is strong to withstand it and not look away, it expands… one becomes greatful - grateful .
I link this also to vast bodies of water, ones where the water spans everywhere and to the horizon. Similar with grasslands. Tuvan landscapes omg . Prairies. It has also an expansive feeling and feeling of freedom. Eternity is hidden in many corners of the Earth. Being in these spaces I feel a greatness of Spirit and I feel myself expanding and tasting freedom and greatfulness (gratefulness) in this way too. But of course, I also realize how small I am. How beautifully small and how wonderful that my spirit is not limited to the size of my body . That I can commune with the prairies and the oceans of this world and taste eternity in my sadness as well.

~.~
To better get into the topic of Sadness and Longing: Huun Huur Tu & Angelite - Fly, Fly My Sadness.

[watergaze]

The promised part of a radio talk. This segment is part of a talk on the topic of Spirit (thankfully, this is easy to add here, because I just had to find where I posted this in the private forums):

Lisa Gerard - Senvean: I am your shadow


We are left with a sadness and silence after this song. What is it that moves/carries/transports us, is it the spirit?
Shaman: I would say it is knowledge that carries us, it lifts us and carries us, from sadness into knowledge. The greatness of my being is uplifting and the fact that it is the greatness of my being that I have just come to know thanks to my sadness. That in the cauldron of all things I am present, I a common human being, but perfectly equipped. I have something for sadness but I have something for uplifting: knowledge. That is uplifting. It could uplift me from depths into depths where it is easier to breathe. And so also to have intents and to go, that means to choose something from that big pile of possibilities. Choose something that will humanly suit me - to feel good.
In sadness is a strength for uplifting oneself. The sadness stops, deepens and gives a very deep contact with oneself. if it is conscious then it is unbelievably uplifting. From the strength that sadness has, it lifts a human being up and this human being in that uplifting can decide if it will fall into depths or ride the wave of that sadness and let itself be carried/lifted into the heights where the eagle soars - the first messenger of spirit. This eagle will look at us and we know that it is not just him that looked, but that something else has looked at us, that Spirit sees my sadness but also my decision that I am ready to lift myself above all that, lift up with knowledge.

[Nagual Menagerie]

I loved reading about your experiences with sadness, kindness, and insight. Sometimes sadness can be the wind beneath our wings to help us gain a new altitude. Other times it can drag us down. That seems to say more about us than it does about the emotion; thanks for sharing that insight with us.

[glance left]

[watergaze]

NM, you're welcome. Thnx for appreciating.

glance, amazing example in a song . I like how it shifts. Calm grief/sadness and then expanding some .

(and City of Angels was a beautiful movie).

I also have a song that links to grief. This one is from the real life, not a movie. The song is the result of the transmutation process (so it does not have the heartbreaking sorrow anymore but more of the uplifting). This song came into my life as I was writing this sadness post today. I was not looking for it, I had no idea it existed. .
Jon Henrik Fjällgren is a raindeer herder of the Saami peoples (indigenous people inhabiting the Arctic area. They are the northernmost indigenous people of Europe). The song is a jolk (traditional singing) which he created for his best friend after he passed away. When his friend Daniel died, Jon sat in front of Daniel's cabin. He sat there and prayed. And as he sat there crying Daniel answered him with this jolk/song. After Jon sang it, he felt much better and it helped him move on.
Lyrics of the song are translated at the end of the video. One can pause it there and read them.

Jon Henrik Fjällgren - Daniel's Joikhttp://www.youtube.com/v/PkUeHNum_ws&version=3 ... tube_gdata

[watergaze]

I did a search in CC's books to find things I reference and talk about (feel free to add to it when you find more on this topic):
CC wrote: It [the will] is experienced as a force that radiates out of the middle part of the body following a moment of the most absolute silence, or a moment of sheer terror, or profound sadness; but not after a moment of happiness, because happiness is too disruptive to afford the warrior the concentration needed to use the luminosity of the body and turn it into silence.
"The Nagual told me that for a human being sadness is as powerful as terror," la Gorda said.
"Sadness makes a warrior shed tears of blood. Both can bring the moment of silence. Or the silence comes of itself, because the warrior tries for it throughout his life."CC wrote:Every time I entered into heightened awareness I could not cease marveling at the difference between my two sides. I always felt as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, as if I had been partially blind before and now I could see. The freedom, the sheer joy that used to possess me on those occasions cannot be compared with anything else I have ever experienced. Yet at the same time, there was a frightening feeling of sadness and longing that went hand in hand with that freedom and joy. Don Juan had told me that there is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without kindness, he said, and knowledge without sobriety are useless.I have not looked too deep into the term sobriety. Maybe someone else can say a few words to the link between sadness and sobriety. For me, Id go the way that facing eternity/sadness bring sobriety naturally because we can see our place in the universe better. The scale of things… to which I said a few words in my post above already.
CC wrote:Never in my life had I had such an attack of melancholy. It was a sadness that had no precise foundation; I associated it with the memory of the depths I had seen in the mirror. It was a mixture of pure longing for those depths plus an absolute fear of their chilling solitude. Don Juan remarked that in the life of warriors it was extremely natural to be sad for no overt reason. Seers say that the luminous egg, as a field of energy, senses its final destination whenever the boundaries of the known are broken. A mere glimpse of the eternity outside the cocoon is enough to disrupt the coziness of our inventory. The resulting melancholy is sometimes so intense that it can bring about death.
He said that the best way to get rid of melancholy is to make fun of it. He commented in a mocking tone that my first attention was doing everything to restore the order that had been disrupted by my contact with the ally. Since there was no way of restoring it by rational means, my first attention was doing it by focusing all its power on sadness.
I told him that the fact remained the melancholy was real. Indulging in it, moping around, being gloomy, were not part of the feeling of aloneness that I had felt upon remembering those depths.
"Something is finally getting through to you," he said. "You're right. There is nothing more lonely than eternity. And nothing is more cozy for us than to be a human being. This indeed is another contradiction - how can man keep the bonds of his humanness and still venture gladly and purposefully into the absolute loneliness of eternity? Whenever you resolve this riddle, you'll be ready for the definitive journey."
I knew then with total certainty the reason for my sadness. It was a recurrent feeling with me, one that I would always forget until I again realized the same thing: the puniness of humanity against the immensity of that thing-in-itself which I had seen reflected in the mirror.
"Human beings are truly nothing, don Juan," I said.
"I know exactly what you're thinking," he said. "Sure, we're nothing, but that's exactly what makes it the ultimate challenge, that we nothings could actually face the loneliness of eternity."
CC wrote:He said that it was the old seers who found out that allies enjoy animal fear more than anything else. They even went to the extreme of purposely feeding it to their allies by actually scaring people to death. The old seers were convinced that the allies had human feelings, but the new seers saw it differently. They saw that allies are attracted to the energy released by emotions; love is equally effective, as well as hatred, or sadness.
CC wrote:warriors are entitled to have profound states ofsadness, but that sadness is there only to make them laugh.
CC wrote:"The new seers recommend a very simple act when impatience, or despair, or anger, or sadness comes their way," he continued. "They recommend that warriors roll their eyes. Any direction will do; I prefer to roll mine clockwise.
"The movement of the eyes makes the assemblage point shift momentarily. In that movement, you will find relief. This is in lieu of true mastery of intent."'
CC wrote:In his teachings, he put a great emphasis on explaining and discussing the assemblage point. I asked him once if the assemblage point had anything to do with the physical body.
"It has nothing to do with what we normally perceive as the body," he said. "It's part of the luminous egg, which is our energy self."
"How is it displaced?" I asked.
"Through energy currents. Jolts of energy, originating outside or inside our energy shape. These are usually unpredictable currents that happen randomly, but with sorcerers they are very predictable currents that obey the sorcerer's intent."
"Can you yourself feel these currents?"
"Every sorcerer feels them. Every human being does, for that matter, but average human beings are too busy with their own pursuits to pay any attention to feelings like that."
"What do those currents feel like?"
"Like a mild discomfort, a vague sensation of sadness followed immediately by euphoria. Since neither the sadness nor the euphoria has an explainable cause, we never regard them as veritable onslaughts of the unknown but as unexplainable, ill-founded moodiness."
CC wrote:"Sadness, for sorcerers, is not personal," don Juan said, again erupting into my thoughts. "It is not quite sadness. It's a wave of energy that comes from the depths of the cosmos, and hits sorcerers when they are receptive, when they are like radios, capable of catching radio waves.
"The sorcerers of olden times, who gave us the entire format of sorcery, believed that there is sadness in the universe, as a force, a condition, like light, like intent, and that this perennial force acts especially on sorcerers because they no longer have any defensive shields. They cannot hide behind their friends or their studies. They cannot hide behind love, or hatred, or happiness, or misery. They can't hide behind anything.
"The condition of sorcerers," don Juan went on, "is that sadness, for them, is abstract. It doesn't come from coveting or lacking something, or from self-importance. It doesn't come from me. It comes from infinity. The sadness you feel for not thanking your friend is already leaning in that direction.

[watergaze]

I did a search in CC's books to find things I reference and talk about (feel free to add to it when you find more on this topic):
CC wrote: It [the will] is experienced as a force that radiates out of the middle part of the body following a moment of the most absolute silence, or a moment of sheer terror, or profound sadness; but not after a moment of happiness, because happiness is too disruptive to afford the warrior the concentration needed to use the luminosity of the body and turn it into silence.
"The Nagual told me that for a human being sadness is as powerful as terror," la Gorda said.
"Sadness makes a warrior shed tears of blood. Both can bring the moment of silence. Or the silence comes of itself, because the warrior tries for it throughout his life."
CC wrote:Every time I entered into heightened awareness I could not cease marveling at the difference between my two sides. I always felt as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, as if I had been partially blind before and now I could see. The freedom, the sheer joy that used to possess me on those occasions cannot be compared with anything else I have ever experienced. Yet at the same time, there was a frightening feeling of sadness and longing that went hand in hand with that freedom and joy. Don Juan had told me that there is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without kindness, he said, and knowledge without sobriety are useless.I have not looked too deep into the term sobriety. Maybe someone else can say a few words to the link between sadness and sobriety. For me, Id go the way that facing eternity/sadness bring sobriety naturally because we can see our place in the universe better. The scale of things… to which I said a few words in my post above already.
CC wrote:Never in my life had I had such an attack of melancholy. It was a sadness that had no precise foundation; I associated it with the memory of the depths I had seen in the mirror. It was a mixture of pure longing for those depths plus an absolute fear of their chilling solitude. Don Juan remarked that in the life of warriors it was extremely natural to be sad for no overt reason. Seers say that the luminous egg, as a field of energy, senses its final destination whenever the boundaries of the known are broken. A mere glimpse of the eternity outside the cocoon is enough to disrupt the coziness of our inventory. The resulting melancholy is sometimes so intense that it can bring about death.
He said that the best way to get rid of melancholy is to make fun of it. He commented in a mocking tone that my first attention was doing everything to restore the order that had been disrupted by my contact with the ally. Since there was no way of restoring it by rational means, my first attention was doing it by focusing all its power on sadness.
I told him that the fact remained the melancholy was real. Indulging in it, moping around, being gloomy, were not part of the feeling of aloneness that I had felt upon remembering those depths.
"Something is finally getting through to you," he said. "You're right. There is nothing more lonely than eternity. And nothing is more cozy for us than to be a human being. This indeed is another contradiction - how can man keep the bonds of his humanness and still venture gladly and purposefully into the absolute loneliness of eternity? Whenever you resolve this riddle, you'll be ready for the definitive journey."
I knew then with total certainty the reason for my sadness. It was a recurrent feeling with me, one that I would always forget until I again realized the same thing: the puniness of humanity against the immensity of that thing-in-itself which I had seen reflected in the mirror.
"Human beings are truly nothing, don Juan," I said.
"I know exactly what you're thinking," he said. "Sure, we're nothing, but that's exactly what makes it the ultimate challenge, that we nothings could actually face the loneliness of eternity."
CC wrote:He said that it was the old seers who found out that allies enjoy animal fear more than anything else. They even went to the extreme of purposely feeding it to their allies by actually scaring people to death. The old seers were convinced that the allies had human feelings, but the new seers saw it differently. They saw that allies are attracted to the energy released by emotions; love is equally effective, as well as hatred, or sadness.
CC wrote:warriors are entitled to have profound states ofsadness, but that sadness is there only to make them laugh.
CC wrote:"The new seers recommend a very simple act when impatience, or despair, or anger, or sadness comes their way," he continued. "They recommend that warriors roll their eyes. Any direction will do; I prefer to roll mine clockwise.
"The movement of the eyes makes the assemblage point shift momentarily. In that movement, you will find relief. This is in lieu of true mastery of intent."'
CC wrote:In his teachings, he put a great emphasis on explaining and discussing the assemblage point. I asked him once if the assemblage point had anything to do with the physical body.
"It has nothing to do with what we normally perceive as the body," he said. "It's part of the luminous egg, which is our energy self."
"How is it displaced?" I asked.
"Through energy currents. Jolts of energy, originating outside or inside our energy shape. These are usually unpredictable currents that happen randomly, but with sorcerers they are very predictable currents that obey the sorcerer's intent."
"Can you yourself feel these currents?"
"Every sorcerer feels them. Every human being does, for that matter, but average human beings are too busy with their own pursuits to pay any attention to feelings like that."
"What do those currents feel like?"
"Like a mild discomfort, a vague sensation of sadness followed immediately by euphoria. Since neither the sadness nor the euphoria has an explainable cause, we never regard them as veritable onslaughts of the unknown but as unexplainable, ill-founded moodiness."
CC wrote:"Sadness, for sorcerers, is not personal," don Juan said, again erupting into my thoughts. "It is not quite sadness. It's a wave of energy that comes from the depths of the cosmos, and hits sorcerers when they are receptive, when they are like radios, capable of catching radio waves.
"The sorcerers of olden times, who gave us the entire format of sorcery, believed that there is sadness in the universe, as a force, a condition, like light, like intent, and that this perennial force acts especially on sorcerers because they no longer have any defensive shields. They cannot hide behind their friends or their studies. They cannot hide behind love, or hatred, or happiness, or misery. They can't hide behind anything.
"The condition of sorcerers," don Juan went on, "is that sadness, for them, is abstract. It doesn't come from coveting or lacking something, or from self-importance. It doesn't come from me. It comes from infinity. The sadness you feel for not thanking your friend is already leaning in that direction.

[Billy]

watergaze: I have not looked too deep into the term sobriety. Maybe someone else can say a few words to the link between sadness and sobriety.

  The sadness experience does not reduce a sorcerer as you implied by: 
"I'd go the way that facing eternity/sadness bring sobriety naturally because we can see our place in the universe better. The scale of things…"

 "There is nothing more lonely than eternity... Sadness, for sorcerers, is not personal, It is not quite sadness. It's a wave of energy that comes from the depths of the cosmos."


In the maturity befitting a sorcerer, the conventional expressive form of humble release does not occur.  That is, even if the sorcerer cries, there is not the sensation of smallness.  Why?
Because, in sobriety the sorcerer at once accepts the entire 'burden' of infinity.  The sensation is one of expansion and not contraction.  He may begin by weeping tears, because the intake of cosmic sadness is monstrously, humanly unbearable, and yet  it is precisely because of his sobriety that the sorcerer accepts his infinite responsibility. 

It is not so much as to lose the human connection, but to know the power of one's own autonomy.  This is an I AM experience to face in full the unthinkable loneliness.   While a sorcerer may initially begin by weeping, or shedding tears of blood, he inevitably begins to laugh.   The laughter brings sober clarity, for there is no mistaking the focus. 

    One is taking on the futility of infinity, so at first the laughter is gut wrenching and painful.  The incongruity of one's own laughter in the face of such a monstrous undertaking at once illuminates, makes the laughter contageous.  One is at the very heights of controlled folly and grace.  This experience is truly powerful.

  My first full-fledged experience of this was during an episode of profoundly effective recapitulation.  Similar occasions of such sadness revisited me numerous times, but the first was most powerful. 

Many times recently I have just wanted to cry as a pitiful human being.  Yet, knowledge is a funny stickler.  I remember who I AM.  Then, I either let pity go (which I usually prefer), or shed tears of blood in laughter verging on insanity.  Once I cut through the pain, the latter is totally hilarious (omg).

[Nagual Menagerie]

I've been thinking more on the topic of sadness. Where it comes from. For me, I view sadness as a yearning--a sense of longing for what I lack (or perceive to lack). Unmet expectations. Sadness can sometimes appear as a state of awareness of knowing what perfection is. When perfection is misaligned with reality then I am saddened. When I make perfection a reflection of reality, it's easier to accept imperfections.

For me, I watch this belly dancing video and view this as sadness due to its perfection. She is not the most beautiful girl in the world, but she is beautiful. She is not the best belly dancer in the world, but she dances impeccably. She is not the best storyteller in the world, but her story is divine. Her blindfold is not the best blindfold in the world (it is, in fact, sheer), but it sells the illusion of blindness within the story. She is not the best-skilled sword master (don't know what they're called) in the world, but her use of the sword is wielded with precision.

Together, all of these imperfections have become a perfect expression of intent. It is this level of manifestation that I'm saddened by because it is so rare to find. I wish moments like this were found everywhere....tossed into the wind like glitter into the center of a tornado.

[Guest]