Turns Out

In Loving Memory of Zoe Mabel Palmer

November 7, 2013 - March 30, 2014

It is a gift to be able to return for some embodied perspective as I write this final post- to sit at the table where I sat down exactly nine months ago today, after I walked away from my apartment for the last time and started my sabbatical.

I rushed in and out of this café for a coffee & croissant hundreds of times on my way to work. I strolled here on Saturdays for a mocha and apple turnover, while Mishkami made friends on the porch.

I expected to feel nostalgic, but it is more like that song – now you’re just a café that I used to know. This neighbourhood was a perfect place for some recovery when I first came out of the North, but I’m so grateful that I left when I did, ecstatic this is not where I will be tomorrow.

The occasion is sobered greatly by the recent death of little Zoe, the beloved daughter of my friends Lise & Dave, whose wedding I had the honour of serving as celebrant at last summer. Zoe was born prematurely and in the end her heart and lungs were not able to sustain her. During her life she was able to grow many pounds, and I have heard that she had already begun to hold her head up and make eye contact with her favourite people.

I’ve also heard accounts of Zoe’s fighter-spirit, how she would make grumpy sounds and disrupt procedures she didn’t like. And also how she made sounds of drunken pleasure when she had milk by mouth and was an insatiable cuddler. I was so moved to learn that in her last couple of weeks Zoe’s family came in from afar and worked in shifts to ensure she was constantly held. I will forever hold the memory of this little spirit and all my heart goes to her parents’ who are suffering an incomprehensible loss.

It seems almost like everything should stop. Like traffic and pedestrians should stand still and mourn together, a baby has died. I think I shouldn’t even write. What difference does my journey make, while such devastation is occurring in my friends’ house?

…

..

.

A feeling that I’ve been nurturing on this sabbatical is now unignorably before my eyes – the preciousness of life, and the primacy of love. I am reminded how all else is distraction, irrelevant in the final answer to what does it all mean?.

I stop in the sun reaching to me between the buildings,

I stand still and open my coat to inhale the light.

I hear protons whispering through the windows of my skin –

how we are dignified, each of us, by the very improbability of our existence.

I feel the light of my own spirit open to meet this sunbath;
I stand a little taller.

Whether by design or random chains of occurrence I am buoyed to feel

the royalty of being a creature of the earth.

Exhaling, I relax downwards a little, give myself to the counter-
gravity of the earth

and to the One, that unnameable song to which all the stardust dances.

My body remembers with loving acceptance, that these are the forces to which I will return, in my eventual decomposition,

back into the fabric that weaves everything seen and unseen around me –

the bricks behind me, the light upon me, the dirt below me, the apple in my hand, the bird hovering above, the child passing by.

***

So as I close this chapter of my own book, I must report that it turns out I wasn’t on a sabbatical after all... I’ve come to realize that the sabbatical was a transitional concept I needed to move towards a life that was more ‘me’. I see now that the container of ‘being on a sabbatical’ gave me permission to devote to the trainings, practices, beliefs and intimacies I had been struggling to prioritize. Having a word for it helped me to make sense of a risky and unconventional way of going through the world.

But the final step, it turns out, is to outgrow this holding. Speaking with my friend Lynnea who is an amazing life coach I realized that I had locked myself into the implication that ‘afterwards’ I would go back to my ‘normal’ life. It’s like I keep finding myself in jails I didn’t realize I was in.

I’m moving ahead today, unsure exactly what this new life will look like. But then again any surety is simply illusion in this world n’est pas? I hope I can make my way as a freelance consultant, organizer, facilitator, creatif. I know it is risky to commit to this kind of life with neither savings nor a specific plan. But I’ve also learned in the last nine months about how little I actually need, how to trade my way, how to listen to my heart and trust the process. And when all that fails, I will remain heartened by the end of Robert Frost’s famous poem.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Certainly the sabbatical did give me a period of time that was more introspective, and I will continue to hold one eye towards this inner gaze. I aspire to give thanks for each breath as it comes and goes from my body, even as I move through the world.

But I also feel a re-emergence into the world. I am refilled with energy and hungry to live out the calling(s) of my life. I’ve recently finished reading “The Great Work of Your Life”. It’s about finding your own dharma (truth / calling / divine gift). I was moved by this passage near the end, it felt like it was speaking exactly to this transition:

The yogi’s chief concern is with the art of living, systematically cultivating energy and health. More than anything [s]he is concerned with living an optimal life…But for the yogi, this concern comes with a proviso: Optimal health and well being are not for their own sake, but rather to be used in the service of others.

(Cope, p240)

Though part of me is still awaiting and inviting a clear calling. Like Jeanne D’Arc hearing the voice of God “You will cast the English out of France!” and so she went fiercely unstoppable, a courageous leader, completely assured and clear in her purpose. Until such time, I will keep exploring, creating and moving in the direction that feels right. I noticed that most of the exemplars of dharma-fulfilled lives in Cope’s book actually followed a series of smaller callings. Often it’s only looking back , even after death, that the pattern of the life snaps into a clear statement. As Lynnea had been coaching me - maybe don’t start with “What’s my life calling?!” but “What’s my calling right now?”

I hope to get into the habit of being in dialogue with the spirit of guidance, to follow the breadcrumb trail of my dharma wherever it leads and trust the process. However, my callings seem to come not as directions but as wonderings - How do we all learn to get along? What prevents us from getting on with enjoying the trials and miracle of life together? By what means do we create heaven on earth? But I will need to find some concrete and focused actions, to use my skills, a friend offered to help me make a website for myself…

This blog has been a scrapbook of my inner experience during this nine-month experiment. I told myself even if no one ever read a line, it was the practice of putting my voice out there, and documenting the journey that mattered. I was so surprised that people took time out of there own busy lives to read me, and so moved by all the comments and emails I received.

Thank you so much to all of those who’ve read this, for hearing me and loving me.

Thank you to all the confidants who have helped to guide me along.

Thank you for your notes of insight and encouragement that helped me feel not completely bizarre.

Thanks to my family for seeing me as I am.

Thank you Frankie for being my editor and the nesting place for this nomad’s heart.

& Thank you, thank you to the Great One-ness, for this life.

~sab

Montreal, QC

Impasse

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood…

~Robert Frost

Thirty days left on my sabbatical and I find myself at an impasse - a stand off with the various futures of myself.  Here in the North Carolina countryside, at most crossroads you will find that the way is very helpfully named after the towns at either end. To get to the nearest grocery store, we go down to Siler City - Snow Camp road and turn right. I wish the choices I face within had such handy labels. It has definitely come time to make some kind of decision. What will I do next?

Certainly one way ahead is a road more traveled. I am good at managing community projects, I can manage grants and write reports, and network well. I could continue to climb the non-profit ladder, doing righteous work and procuring enough money for organic food and vacations to reclaim my Irish and Italian heritage. That seems a very good life.

But these last nine months I have climbed out of some boxes that held me. It took months for my conditioned stress and managerial responses to dissipate. I realized it was bad when I caught myself admonishing Frankie that we were an hour behind schedule to head into town for errands one day. Seriously? Does this really matter? I wondered… What is this really about?

I realized it wasn't actually about anything, rather a habit of my urban working life. It’s hard to imagine putting myself back into the lifestyle that led to that mindset again. Feels like putting my body back into a machine that I know will eat me slowly, but to be fair it would feed me well all the while.

Over the months I have emerged into a whole new territory of life. Everything is uncertain, financially risky and yet I feel quite alive and stronger than ever. The old fears and worries remain with me, but there is also a shy new courage.  But for what exactly? I don’t even know what this other way looks like exactly, I’ve wandered down it and back a bit, but it is too wildly overgrown to see far ahead. I am emboldened, however, to notice that the chickadees keep heading that way.

You will end up alone, disillusioned, broke and there will be no coming back.

They will burn the bridges behind you.

This is the nature of my impasse. Fear and pre-emptive nostalgia for what will be lost if I go one way and not the other.

Synchronicity is one of the gifts that seems to emerge as I open my heart to the universe, in lieu of detailed and well managed plans. A couple weeks ago, for example, at the Shalom leadership training I was given a teaching about impasse. I was already coming to my impasse as March 1^st loomed, beginning the final countdown - thirty days left on this sabbatical.  The pressure and stuckness were with me, but I hadn’t named my situation clearly. Impasse. What a difference it makes - a thing rightly named.

We see it almost every time in the healing work. That moment when something stops the journeyer, pulls us back. We become still, a deep contemplation comes over us – not of the mind, but of the body and heart. It is the place where we hit the edge of who we know ourselves to be, yet feel torn, hearing a faint call, some lost fragment of ourselves beckoning us further.

Do I really go there? Shall I expose this wound to your, my attention? Will it be worth it? It is too painful. I feel as though I might die.

In these moments, our teacher said, it is important not to push, not to let your own excitement or impatience make the decision for them. Name the impasse, give it the time and space it needs.

I’ve seen people living way outside the box, in my travels. I passed through and felt a mixture of desire and judgment, longing and confounded sensibility – How do they make this work?! Impasse.

I admonish myself, it is a privilege even to stand in this question. I fit decently well into the boxes of society. I’m white and middle class. My body is able and matches my gender. I’ve been to university. No mouths depend on me. I should go on, settle down, use will to discipline this wanderlust. Do something my family can understand and respect. Go find a full time job with benefits and a pension plan. Stop moving around so much. Build a wealth that I could share. Buy a house, think of my retirement years so that I do not end up a burden to someone else.

But here is a buried faith emerging, that I'm meant for a different life. Deeper than the choices of where to live and what to do, is the Who am I?

My sister gave me a book that I’ve been devouring this week – a modern reflection on the Bhagavad Gita . Krishna’s teaching is paraphrased - encouragement to find and live by our own dharma, in the truth of our self that goes beyond our self, the divine gift that is our own unique calling. Apparently it should be right under my nose.

So here I will stand, sniffing the air in all directions and ruminating like the cows just over the fence from where I write. I’ll try coaching, structured decision making, counseling, visioning, journaling, reading more about personal dharma, contemplating and praying.

Prayers like,

Great Spirit, I feel as though my whole life has brought me to be standing here today at this impasse, help me to see the proper next step in my journeying.

Amen.

With love to you on your journey,

~ sab

Frankie’s farm, North Carolina