Here is a deviation from form. Seven months into my sabbatical, big changes astir – but the this new self is a shifting tapestry, dancing
on the horizon, blurred by the rising sun… let me try to share from within this
dazed vision.
I swear I tried, for
what I imagined to be your sake, to contort myself into some sensible pattern –
an essay, a poem, a rant... but something has unlocked inside and at this
moment I shant apologize for nonsensibility.
befitting this inner state I will offer some sort of stream
of consciousness highlights travel log with lots of missing parts. Lots of ‘…’
the chickadees have
escaped and are dancing wildly in many directions, circling back suddenly at
odd angles… the order has lost rhythm,
I am unfrozen and not
yet reformed enough to speak clearly,
still lots wants to
come out and meet you!
…opening of the spaces between things, the not quite sure
how this ends, the wait and see what emerges in the next moment, a profound relaxation
of bounds, I am learning to surrender into the flow that has taken me…
I feel quite separate
from ‘real life’ these days. But then again,
the deeper I go,
I seem to be meeting
people more truly.
Encounters are
brief , but
cut
right to the heart
remembering,
what matter is here
our lives
&
love.
That’s where I left you last, with the desire to love
better… at Shalom, working inside the notion that one can learn how to do that-how to practice better loving.
In the January training this meant the return of
“No.”
“I changed my mind.”
To my inner child… lessons and ceremony to resurrect my self
protective instincts. Helped me see why I’ve continued to make myself prey…next
day I wake up with a new whisper bouncing around my head “I’m precious and worth
protecting”.
Then 10 days at the Abode for Sufi teachings. Some days I
wanted to scratch out of my own skin, to run … sitting still, staying silent, on
the edge of sleep... mind slipping into oblivion, losing hold. Other days holding
on too tight, awake, assaulted by alpha waves I can’t break under...
How to float in the
middle?
How to receive the teachings there where they hover at the
threshold between waking life and the dream world?…
Then it happened one morning.
I was entranced.
Vividly conscious and focused on the transmission,
yet absorbing it from far within, the room itself vague and
distant.
I’m not exactly clear what he is saying, but suddenly I feel
the slipping away of something covering the front me, inside…
as if there was a second skin just inside the front of my body…
thin and flexible, but energetic and strong. like a sheet, or…
is there a veil in me
falling?
Yes falling towards my feet there is a moment of wanting to
clutch at it,
but so moved by the Pir’s open and speaking heart I breathe carefully,
fully,
I trust, and let it fall.
My whole being becomes vulnerable,
body is quivering,
I am a
giant exposed organ…
a heart. with tears in my eyes,
I am a fountain weeping at the beauty of being.
A new sense of grace and god entered there and spontaneous
prayers have begun to show up in my daily life as I learn to be unveiled and talk
directly to the one(ness).
Prayers like
“Oh Wow!”
“Please, guide me”
“Yes universe, yes!”
“Thank You!”
In a light snow fall I am driven from weeks of cloistered
temple spaces to the train. Peaceful landscapes covered in fresh powder – I am
sitting still and watching heaven roll by me for hours. The shift sneaks up on
me as the sun sets and we approach Toronto. I am getting cranky and
contracted. Suddenly it is dark and I am struck by the site of a Red Lobster
the size of a small mountain - parking lot is full! Full!.. other big boxes, the
401 highway – rigs and cars, dizzy me the lights zooming too fast for feeling. My
breathing quickens, the veils return but it is heavy and hard like concrete…
Serendipitously timed, the next day I am invited into a gathering of
playback practitioners from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto. We meet in a Cedar room with
windows into the sky, I forget Toronto is outside. Stories, play, people working hard in the world to listen
to each other, crossing cultures, genders, sexualities and life stages… I am reopened
somewhat.
Then for weeks I move from home to home, city to city - Montreal, Hamilton, Buffalo, Chicago, Boston, Granby. I try
to stay as open as I can. I come with the time to listen and the desire to
practice love - I touch into, I witness, I see the deepest issues of the heart
– the struggle to parent a premature child, fleeing an abusive partner, how to
reclaim a life, how to say I’m sorry, negotiating a divorce, advocating for an
aging parent’s care, addictions… Wow. I feel like I’m wading through the most
real of real life, even though my current path is out of the bounds of
supposedly normal life.
I got to shack up in
a fancy hotel room with Tionda while I did a small gig at a conference. Long
lost best friends with just a few days to soak each other up. Work I believe in,
helping teachers access resources to teach the missing histories of Aboriginal
peoples in Canada. And now I can afford to keep going on my journey. Prayers of
thanks.
I got to dress up in my new unicorn underwear and give a
speech at the Flying Beaver Pub - about how I ripped Gab out of the closet ten
years ago. People are laughing and I love touching the microphone and carrying
it down off the stage to be close with the people.
I got to see a river curving widely through a city, Chicago
– who knew it was so beautiful?! Inside a glass building I hear a lecture on
how Walt Whitman conceived of ‘bodies’. Wow God. I find myself at tables
with artists, performers, writers, I touch into communities that care. It makes
me hungry for a place.
Back at shalom a few days ago and this time it is my woman self claiming her ‘no’,
“Fuck you”.
“Fuck you”.
“Fuck you”.
a paradigm shift from violence to consent is afoot, from submission to surrender, from tantrums of resistance to boundaries that paradoxically bring me closer to the ones I love.
Whether it is my heart’s unveiling by Pir Zia’s words,
or
the reclamation of my little girl’s ‘No’, and my ferocious Fuck You,
or the heart-glow of all these friends receiving me,
somehow my tolerance for intimacy has
dramatically increased…
What a miracle
to say what I
think and feel,
share my interior world as best as I can and feel lovingly
heard and seen…
following the threads of mine and others’ souls,
drawing them out of each other’s mouths and bodies,
stitching ourselves and the torn blanket of humanity back
together.
I see healing, connection, intimacy, realness.
We look in each others’ eyes and feel the touching inside.
It gives me a rush.
Dancing in the front yard of Eros' castle.
...With less than two months now til the clock strikes done on
this sabbatical, I notice my psyche begin to turn towards life afterwards… to a
more stable situation, a room of my own, a bed, a dresser, a spice rack, a house,
my bike, a community of place. Ambitions to join things and convene things…
preemptive sorrow - that walls and routine will replace this
movement
fear too - of being fed back to the machine of modern
society, that I will be overwhelmed rejoining the ranks of all the people breaking
themselves against the world, suffering and exhausted.
and Hope - beginning to dream of a middle way...
I got to land into the familiarity and rambunctious warmth of
Natalie & George’s family home last week. discussions about attachment parenting and unschooling, I realize that my sabbatical has largely been about attachment reparenting with god and unschooling
myself. After I dump the content and reflections of the past month all over Natalie’s fully attentive body she reflects that a year ago I wouldn’t have said all this out loud. Then she sums my life state up for me simply,
“It’s like you’re past
the point of no return.”
“Yes! That’s it!” I cry.
That’s it.
