I remember one time a therapist and spiritual guide saying words that were eventually salvific for me. He said, "You seem to keep imaging your depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Why don't you try imaging it as the hand of a friend trying to press you down to ground on which it is safe to stand?" And that image has always stayed with me of this movement from the world of abstraction, the hot-air balloon that education so falsely represents as the good life, down to the ground—in my tradition, the "ground of being"—on which it's not only safe to stand but safe to fall, and you can get back up.
Well, at some point in that journey with depression, I was given by a friend some words from that extraordinary novel by T.H. White , The Once and Future King. This is a passage in which the young Arthur, king to be, in his depression, his dark night of the soul has sought counsel from Merlin, the magician, who was his mentor. And I want to read these wonderful words which created a spark of light for me in the midst of that death-dealing episode of my life. Speaking to the young Arthur, Merlin says:
The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies. You may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins. You may miss your only love. You may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it, then: To learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.
"Learning is the thing for you." I read those words, and I began to understand that in the midst of death, there is life in learning. I could not do much in the darkness of my depression. I couldn't work. I couldn't connect with other people. But I could start to learn what was in there. I could grope around in the darkness and learn what and who was there. And, of course, those of you who have been on that journey know that part of what I found and learned about there was what Thomas Merton calls true self.
Parker Palmer, The Grace of Great Things
