Blood & Ink: Gentle Violence

“No one will know the violence it took to become this gentle.”

It’s unclear who this quote should be correctly attributed to…

Parts of the internet claim it as Ralph Waldo Emerson, while others credit ‘Eben Britton’, an American NFL football player.

Messenger aside, something in this message speaks to a core part of me.

It reminds me of another hauntingly beautiful quote I came across many years ago… from ‘Lost’ by Charles Bukowski:

“…those who escape hell, however, never talk about it & nothing much bothers them after that.”

Undergoing the initiation of getting unflinchingly real with yourself is no easy process. The other side of ‘doing the work’ can be beautiful: confidence, groundedness, contentment, vitality, and aliveness. But the pathway there is often fraught with challenges, initiations, shadows, traps, blindspots, pain, and discomfort of all varieties.

But it’s in the eyes… it’s always in the eyes…

I can see when someone has gone through hell and come out the other side. They have the small knowing smile of acknowledgement, the sacred witness looking back at you, “ah yes, I have been there too. I see you.”

Sometimes—perhaps often—the work is not beautiful. It’s not glamorous.

It’s easy to think that the work you have to do is not the work in front of you now.

• Why am I bored? I need to be confronting the yawning abyss of reality!
• Why is my sexuality so difficult to express? I want the strength of my character challenged!
• Why is my ceremony so gentle? I was looking for an initiation!

Your work is your work, at precisely the moment when it emerges in front of you.

Boredom, rest, anger, controlling the passions, metaphysical restructuring. It’s all fair game. It’s all a necessary and next step toward true liberation.

Don’t look away. Don’t hold back. Keep going.

While those who have gone through hell don’t talk about it, you see it in their eyes. You hear it in their voice.

The whispers of personal triumph. The spark of eternal overcoming. The gentleness on the integrated side of violence.

You’ve got this, keep going.
EB