The Mountainless Void
-Forgiveness III

I used to live by a big mountain and the winds would blow down its slopes and bite my cheeks, cut my heart. No matter where I went, there that mountain would be. That terrible mountain, and its shadow.

For decades I climbed that mountain, learned its every secret way. Sometimes with a guide, but mostly I was alone. Every time I came back down I would walk beside a river. Crossing that river was a narrow stone bridge, a strange bridge with a single closed door at the apex; separating the upwards from the downwards. I never dared approach that door and I never saw it open.

Until one day I took my heart and folded it into a paper plane. I climbed that mountain one last time and cast it without malice into the flowing winds, watched it glide free until it vanished in the shimmering distance. For the first time I stood before the door.

As my hand rested on the handle my heart was full of dreams of love, raising a family. I opened the door, stepped through the portal, and found myself nowhere I had ever been…

I stood upon a grassy plane that stretched to the horizon, with a river behind me, and flatness in all directions. That giant mountain, the primary landmark of my world, was gone. The wind was gone. The shadow was gone. The pain of the past was gone, but so too were my dreams of the future. So too was my energy gone, my motivation, my sense of direction. Without that fucking mountain and its cutting winds I was totally disoriented, adrift in the doldrums, unable to summon the faintest conviction.

I drifted ignorantly like that for months, in the void that comes after absolute forgiveness, until by chance I bumped into another man like me. He was adrift in his own void, and that made me think (belatedly – as ever) maybe this isn’t just me? What if it is just part of healing? 

Turns out the void is typical – but hardly anyone talks about it. A simple timeline for healing may look something like: Trauma -> Safety -> Forgiveness -> Reconstruction. But typically the Void is experienced after Forgiveness but before Reconstruction.

I.e. Trauma -> Safety -> Forgiveness -> Void -> Reconstruction. During forgiveness a person may move beyond their trauma, losing both a motivating purpose (to heal) and a central landmark of their internal world (the trauma). This can create displacement across multiple dimensions: feeling, purpose, time, place, relationships – combined with a need to properly mourn what was lost along the way. No wonder it feels like drifting in a void, with elements of digesting an antelope.

Good thing the bridge is still there. The door is still there. I am still here. Hope is still burning.

Bring out the scraper and shave wood back to the bare truth. Bring out the chisel, te whao, and carve the wood with my identity. Dive for bright shells, burn roots for pigments, and adorn every inch with my sense of self and deepest desires – and rest deeply to regain strength. 

Then open the door and step through once more, to somewhere blazing with love and purpose. 

……

Now to update my previous Map of Healing:

Distance from the disaster.
A quiet haven safe from harm.

The desire to go within and reflect.
A loving Guide, competent and wise.

Releasing your pale-knuckled deathgrip.
Forgiveness, acceptance, a door on a river.

Step through to a mountainless void.
Adrift in the doldrums, awaiting new purpose.

(This last couplet is reserved for after I experience reconstruction. Let’s see!)