It is autumn again and almost winter. Just as the seasons return cyclically every year, so the beliefs that go with them return with the same regularity. In my consulting chair, but also in the street, in the shop and on the radio, I hear how the grey clouds, the dreary weather and the lack of sunshine are held responsible for the mood of my fellow human beings in winter. Without any hesitation this trio is pointed out as a set of merciless culprits, while the speaker cannot escape the grip of victimhood either. Sometimes they form a quartet and the low temperatures are dragged in as well. It is as if, like parasites devouring everything, they force the speaker’s life energy down to the lower markings on the barometer of life. People wait longingly for spring as for a life-saving angel. If only autumn and winter would soon be over.
Professionally speaking, a remark like that triggers a cyclically recurring reaction in me and I feel invited to do something with it. How is it that I do not experience the influence of the weather in that way? Why does a dull grey day not make me gloomy? At the same time it takes me back to that time a radio station invited me to share my view on the prevailing winter blues. Back then I did not yet feel ripe enough to frame my view well. In the meantime I have ripened, and together with the other person I step into an experience of consciousness.
Today was another one of those ideal days. The blanket of cloud was dark grey. It was drizzling. The temperature was flirting with 8 or 9 degrees. An ideal moment to look at the sky. We opened the windows of the room. He one on the right, I one on the left. The fresh air dived into the room at once. Before our eyes a wide playing field of grey cloud showed itself. Everywhere we looked.
‘What do you see when you look at the sky?’ I got exactly the answer I expected.
‘Everything is grey.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes, everything. And it is dark.’
‘Is it equally grey everywhere?’
He observed willingly and attentively. With a faint trace of wonder he discovered fifty shades of grey. Rather different shades, admittedly, from the ones described in the famous book of that name. And not only grey. Shades of white as well.
‘This is the first time in my life that I have noticed this,’ he murmured, apparently amazed at his own powers of perception and with a question mark in his voice about how on earth he could have missed this all those years.
That is how it goes with our inner clouds, our grey state of mind. When things are going a little less well, we tend to follow the darkest grey and extrapolate it to the whole, exactly as we look at the blanket of cloud. The points of light that are everywhere in many shades, we do not see. Just as we project the long winter nights and the dark days onto the whole of winter. Then you become disheartened. We know that the sun is always shining behind the clouds, but we forget it. If we observe the dark clouds with more openness, we discover glimpses of this reality. Subtle sometimes, but perceptible all the same.
‘Do you understand it?’ I asked him.
‘I think I understand it, but I cannot feel it yet.’ I could see from his whole being that this was true. The head was active, the feeling shut off. But not with a heavy lock. A gentle nudge would do.
‘What if, while you are observing, you breathe the lighter spaces deep inside? What would happen then?’ Automatically I reached my arms out sideways in a receptive movement. My air sacs opened of their own accord and I breathed in powerfully, immediately followed by a deep sigh and a relaxation in my body. He followed. He did the same. A small adjustment about breathing in and out and he was off. Silence descended upon us. Silence filled the room. A protective, safe, luminous layer surrounded us. We were one with that grey sky, which was now so much more. He descended. Into himself. Into his being. Connected with himself. Within himself. No need to speak, no need to do anything. Just being.
After a while he raised his gaze higher, like the lens of a camera slowly zooming in on something important. Fascinated, he took in a new spectacle.
‘Where is your attention going?’ I asked, noticing that my curiosity was winning out over keeping quiet.
‘A watercolour. The sky is like a watercolour.’ He did not need to tell me that he found the watercolour beautiful. It was obvious. His radiance had changed. He looked happy. More at rest. We were silent.
‘Do you also see the movements in the blanket of cloud?’ It looks like one great grey mass, but besides the shades, the movement of life is always present. Even when winter seems dark and long, life keeps moving. Movement in the stillness, in the reflection, in the withdrawal. Only to unfold again within a few months. A few birds flew through our field of vision as if they wanted to underline that movement.
‘It is years since I last discovered something so beautiful and so important.’ I believed him.
And so we stood there. He at one window, I at the other. In silence. One with an experience. The grey blanket of cloud as a mirror of ourselves, with deep layers that bring us closer to who we are. The temperature in the room had dropped considerably by then. Unnoticed, without troubling us.
We could have gone on standing there like that for another hour. Perhaps that is exactly what we did.
Hilde Van Bulck
Consciousness architect — Speaker — Writer — Systemic constellation facilitator and advisor
AMI Activator — Motivator — Inspirer