Crying puts us in touch with the divine

These days I cry quite a bit.

I used to never cry. I remember one time in 1991, while I was in high school, after I came back from the movies - I think it was Dances with Wolves - and I felt like crying. I went for a walk alone, really wanting the tears to come. But I couldn't make them. Like so many of us, I'd been conditioned to not cry. And later on I managed to attract a mate who told me in no uncertain terms that if I were to be with her, I could forget all about crying right then and there, and I willingly shut that door for another decade.

So it's not surprising that there's a lot of tears now that wants to come out. 37 years worth of tears. That makes for quite a puddle.

Se these days I do cry. I still have some shame around the tears. Phoebe will cry in the yoga studio in front of everyone else. I'll cry there, too, but it'll be silent and try not to get noticed (though a part of me does want to be noticed). I feel ugly when I cry. Like it's embarrassing to let others see me cry - I have to apologize if they do. Interestingly, when I'm with other people who cry, I find it's touching and beautiful and courageous. Oh, the double-standards that we keep.

But I love to cry. It feels so good. It brings such relief. There's not necessarily any stories attached to the tears - I usually have no idea what the tears are about. I'm not sad afterwards. I'm not caught up in emotion. It's just pain leaving my body.

And I feel lighter afterwards. When I get a really good cry, it'll usually be accompanied by bowel movements later in the day. The human body is endlessly fascinating. Such a magical piece of machinery. If the human body isn't proof of a divine creative force in the Universe, I don't know what is.

Some days when I haven't cried in a while, I'll put on the song "The Letter" from the Billy Elliot musical. If the tears are a little slow in coming, I'll start to sing along - that'll bring out the tears every time. Last year, Phoebe and I went to see the musical live in San Francisco with my friend Morten and his girlfriend. To this day, I haven't had the guts to ask him what they thought of us crying non-fucking-stop through the entire thing. And we hadn't brought any kleenex, we had no idea it would be like that. Morten, if you're reading this, let me know :)

The other day I heard this quote in a movie - not sure which one, maybe it was Discover the Gift: "Crying puts us in touch with the divine". It struck a chord in me. When we cry, we connect with the most vulnerable part of our selves. We become like children. And really, it is so precious and beautiful. But way too often, we tell our kids, "don't cry". And so that's the message they learn. They learn to keep their tears inside, and slowly build a barrier between their minds and their divine selves. That is the world in which we live.

But it doesn't have to be this way. You can start the change today, by exploring the part of you that wants to shed tears. Know that it's perfectly safe, and it feels fantastic. And by doing so, you're helping to heal not just yourself, but also your family, your lineage, your community, and the entire world.

Cry, baby, cry! :)