“All throughout history, tears have done 3 works: called the spirits to one’s side, repelled those who would muffle and bind the simple soul, and healed the injuries of the poor human bargains.
Tears are part of the mending of rips in the psyche - where energy has leaked and leaked away. The matter is serious, but the worst does not occur - Our light is not stolen - for tears make us conscious. There is no chance to go back to sleep when one is weeping.”
- from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves.
Tears, the great healer…the balm to pain. Who has not cried in their lifetime and how after allowing the tears to flow, there is eventually a great sense of relief and release. It is a disease in our culture to mark a person as weak who feels and expresses grief, shame and fear through tears. It’s in giving ourselves permission to express our pain or joy through tears, that wounds and elations are given a voice and process to let loose the depths of ourselves in crying; out loud or quietly.
I am so grateful whenever I can cry or witness another’s tears because in this experience I feel compassion for myself and another increase and flow. I am more concerned when myself or another is so frozen that they cannot melt the hardness of their pain and complexes, and as a result, other psychic or physical illness set in, if it has not already taken over the person’s life force. When we hide or bury our grief, sadness, depression, shame, anger, fear and terror, we lay waste to ourselves. We may as well be physically six feet under because we are deadening our spirit and vitality to remain a hungry ghost in search of anything to keep us numb or falsely distracted, and untouched by creative turpitude and freedom to be our wild true selves. I know that when the time of the dark night of the soul comes up, I am in the process of shedding and releasing the old dead skin of my snake self and can only get through that night with the assistance of my tears…be they the sobbing kind or the quiet weeping into my pillow.
There is a time for every purpose under heaven as the song “Turn, Turn, Turn” goes. Yes, I know it’s originally from the Bible. The wise works and messages abound and are all around us. There is in any given moment that we embrace, the timely effort of these thoughts and feelings that can be exorcised and celebrated through tears. I ask you to welcome as perfect in its timing, the surge of feelings and tears as they are necessary and valiant harbingers of our truest essence. We can be ourselves and let go of any messages that judge or warn us that we will not be enough, too much, not right or failures if we give our tears free reign. I say to you….those tears you cry are the worthiest, clearest, most beautiful messengers of release paving a path to your soul…Like when the rain wets the earth…who would we be without our tears? How will we change without full presence in the now? If you cry, I cry with you. I celebrate your vulnerability, humility and humanness. I embrace your tears and all that is you.
—MV