The Sludge (part 1)

When heading into a dream, or even into the next part of your dream, you will face insurmountable confusion on what to do first.  There will be so many options, so many competing paths, so many ways to go - you will not know what to do.  Welcome to the sludge!

The reality is that creatives can get into an infinite loop here.  Staring at all the options, though super overwhelming, can at the same time also be almost entertaining.  There is certain creative rush in not choosing, in remaining open to infinite options.  It is also very tragic.

If we stay here too long we hemorage.  Deciding is momentous.  Take the step.  Let the step lead to another step.  Don’t worry so much about making a terrible decision.  Doing nothing is worse.  Keep that attitude.  When slicing your way through sludge you are doing something.

One decision here leads to another decision there.  One at a time.  We move.  We try.  We guess.  We simiply start.  And this is difficult.  And yes, we may mess up the order.  We may wish we would have done something differently later.  Sure.  But we must start!

Move despite the fear.  Move despite the doubts.  Move despite the constant gnawing feeling something is off.  For intuitive people this stage is hard.  They are used to “feeling” the way through things.  That is not always bad, but here it will not help.  Here we lean on will.

Movement begits movement.

We muster up the strength to act.  We step into the muck.  We move!  Try this, explore that.  Step this way.  Then that.  Hit a breach, go back.  Go over.  Go around.  Sometimes under.  There is a great deal of intuition as we walk through the muck.  Something in us directs us.

Left or right?  Through the rough or around it?  We are constantly navigating.  But once we start moving, moving becomes intuitive.  Before moving it seems extraordinarily rationale, to a degree that we are not gifted.  That is the lie!  Start walking and the playing field levels.

Just keep walking and things open up.  That’s why it’s an adventure.  You can’t know what comes next until it comes.  We just keep moving.  It will not feel like much, but before we realize it, we got somewhere.  It is not our final destination, okay, but it is somewhere.

Seasons of sludge are tough.  Think of flooding seasons in certain parts of the world.  Everything is wet, all the time.  Think about how that changes everything, even emotionally.  That’s sort of what it feels like trudging through sludge.  It feels endless, and impossible.

Step after step into formless muck.  No path.  No clear directive.  Just making one’s way.  Perhaps in a dry season such a trip would be more likely.  We are tempted to wait for better conditions.  Bunker down.  It will get better, but It’s called rainy “season” for a reason.

Don’t expect it to lay up.  Keep going!  Don’t settle here.  Don’t wait for it to blow over.  It will not.  Keep going.  Let the rain come.  Induldge the muck.  Don’t wish for something else.  Allow it to be what it is.  And, if humanly possible, smile.  Find a certain beauty in the madness.

You were never in control anyway.  The sludge reminds us of that.  We do not exist outside or independent of the situations we are born into.  We are created.  And the sludge, in a very real way, reminds us of our first home on earth: the primordial womb we started in.