Just a share from a moments reflection on the experience of emotion. What is emotion? What does it mean? Are there key experiences that each of us share even if the way in which each of us make sense of our feelings differs?

The offer of a poem and a quote.

Poem

This beautiful poem captures the tentativeness of emotion when our loved ones pass on in the cycle of life:

” When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down in tall grasses,

and even elephants lumber after safety.

When great trees fall in forests,

small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,

the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.

Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, 

gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken.

Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us.

Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away.

We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves.

And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. 

Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. 

They existed. 

….

They existed.

We can be. Be and be better. 

For they existed.”

~ Maya Angelou

Quote

“In every moment of sadness, another layer of outdated cellular memories leaves your energy field. As each layer is released through spontaneous expressions of doubt, despair, and disappointment, the world is equally cleansed and released from the spell of unconsciousness. This may help you understand how there is nothing to fear when sadness is present. If anything, knowing the energetic purpose behind such a misunderstood emotion reminds you to slow down and relax your body, so you may see how an experience of sadness has absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances and outcomes that bring it to the surface.
Sadness is your highest transformation being recognized in progress.

No matter how lonely it may seem or how devastating it can feel, sadness acts as the unsuspecting sign that a new reality has dawned within you. As this is accepted, the consuming nature of sadness transforms into the peaceful resolve of self-realization.
This helps to dispel any myth about the location of awakening that many believe exists somewhere beyond the grip of sadness. Instead, Awakening is the natural recognition of your essential nature that unfolds with ease, once the healing power of sadness has been survived.
This may also help you see how in its’ purest form, sadness is not the absence of happiness.
Sadness is actually the clean-up crew of the Universe.
One breakdown at a time, it sweeps every distraction out of your energy field, so the happiness that is always here can be revealed”

~ Matt Kahn