"If you sit with your demons, they start to look a lot like angels who have been through hell."
That's what I've told myself since starting this, and it's true. No need to judge, reform, change. This year, of all years, we know people who are going through it and making the best choices they can to protect themselves, even if those are objectively not the best options available. We can accept them where they are; why not those turbid energies that are a part of us?
The night before last, my evening consisted of sitting down in my chair after work to decompress, and soon after feeling a heavy, creeping weight enter the space with me. Just holding onto consciousness was difficult, and there was a tremendous feeling of generalized desire that developed on a level before words, deep in the mind, and settled in for a while. Eventually, the fog and weight lifted, and I very soon thereafter collapsed into a deep and dreamless sleep. It's taken until today for me to energetically recover from the experience. What was it?
There is not one shadow of a doubt in me that that turbid energy was and is what people commonly refer to as "demonic," with all of the baggage that word entails. It was powerful, it was primal, and it most certainly did *not* play by the rules of the game we polite, civilized, genteel humans have set up for ourselves. But does that make it evil and malignant? Isn't that what the label is shorthand for? Storms are primal. Earthquakes are powerful. Fire doesn't care one bit about what we would prefer it do; where there is fuel, it will travel. Would we call those things demonic or evil? Of course not; they're fundamental forces of nature.
So too, I think, was this substantial but disembodied energy that came to visit. Whether I act on it or not, it'd be disingenuous to say that there is not desire in me--desire for a partner, desire for financial security, desire for peace inside myself. Lean into it, release the fire. Pull away from it, store energy for the eventual quake. Ignore it? Big storms form from big imbalances.
Desire is a part of me. Deny that part, and it will build until it can't be ignored. Attack it, and it will defend itself. Jump into it, and it will consume. Nothing evil; just following its nature in its environment. So what am I to do?
Be a good host. Desire, like every part of me, desires to be understood and accepted. Give it space to exist, give it room to follow its nature. Let it breathe and live in peace. See its place in the landscape; fire creates room for new growth and fertilizes the ground for it; earthquakes change soil conditions to allow for new life. Storms scatter seeds to where they can grow and water them. Can all of this be traumatic? Sure. Damaging? From a certain point of view, yes.
A surgeon may cause trauma to preserve life. An artist may create discomfort so growth can happen. Everything has its place; no danger, no harm. Accepting and allowing all of these forces to go about their business seems a prudent course of action.
"The reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren't. [...] How do you know what's good for other people? How do you know what's good for you? If you say you want ot improve then you ought to know what's good for you, but obviously you don't because if you did then you would be improved."
--Alan Watts
We can't know what the best version of ourselves is if we aren't already it. How can we become compassionate if we have no compassion for the uncompassionate parts of us? How can we be free of desire if we desire to be free of desire? Nature allows all the many things to follow their own nature, and somehow this accepting and allowing creates a harmonious and perfect balance. Maybe there's something in that.