Erica Staab

From the Minnesota Quilt Show 2011

When sad, be really sad, sink into sadness. What else can you do? Sadness is needed. It is very relaxing, a dark night that surrounds you. Fall asleep into it. Accept it, and you will see that the moment you accept sadness, it starts becoming beautiful. – Osho

(Thanks to Alana’s post at Life After Benjamin for this powerful quote)

I am beginning to accept and trust that if I truly let myself go into sadness that I will not stay there for longer than I need to.  It gets uncomfortable after awhile, like a sweater that is just a little too small, and I long for the lightness of being, of joy bubbling up… but I have learned how to honor sadness, let it wash over me, do what it will and then watch it ebb away.  And the more freely I allow myself these moments, the more I just sink into sadness, ask it what it wants of me, what does it want to say, the more quickly it responds, and the more easily it retreats.  So often it simply wants the chance to sit with what is in the moment, honor the loss, mourn the empty places and give voice to what was lost before moving on to a full throttle life.

Sadness requires a sitting in the unknown, in the silence, in the empty spaces… and we who are so fast to fill our lives shudder at the thought of an empty space, a moment where we hear our own breath echo in the silence.  But this is an opportunity to touch sadness, to turn it over in our hands, to feel the sharp edges, to see how it fits into our lives adding something even if we can’t quite name what it is yet.

There were so many times in the midst of my deepest grief that I doubted that I would ever feel happy again, that I would ever truly smile again.  The smile that seems to come from deep inside that can’t help but force itself out.  Gratitude was fleeting and so much of me was numb and life felt flat and lifeless.  But over time, bit by bit, there were moments that reminded me to trust, to know that my very being was laced with joy, that my gratitude would return, that my love was never lost, that as Rilke reminds us “no feeling is ever final.”