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The Borderland

Sep 25th, 2011 by Amy Pierce

The Borderland, an essay from 19 October 2000

 

From Gregory Colbert's Ashes and Snow - www.ashesandsnow.org

In my very early years I could not identify with people; truth is, I hated them. But oh how I loved animals. I was so very emotionally connected to these sentient beings, these ones I believed (at that time) had little say in their own destinies here on earth. At some point in recent years I came to view those feelings for my non-human siblings somewhat through the extremely limiting lens of psychopathology. In other words, I was told (and I accepted for a time) that the reason I felt this way toward animals was because I was projecting my own experiences and feelings of abuse and torment onto them. In part, this was true, but it is not the whole story. In fact, it is the smaller part of a greater story that I am only now beginning to understand.

As I have aged, (I am completing my seventh season of seven), the emotional traumas associated with both my early childhood and what I now know are past life rememberings have been brought forcefully to center stage. When I was ready, Great Helpers appeared and, with generosity of spirit manifesting in numerous ways, enabled my embarking upon what has become two decades of psychic and emotional healing.

Aerial photo by Bernhard Lang

Then, just when I thought I was nearing a graduation of sorts, my greatest challenge has appeared. As a result, I am drowning once more going deeply into places I would neither have anticipated nor wished for. As a result of the particularly unwelcome challenge I have become the Opossum for a while, playing dead to keep from feeling the terror and pain of what was simply an unacceptable experience. In a recent dream, the Opossum and the Bear were fighting each other. In looking for the meaning of the dream, I went to the Medicine Cards for guidance. Opossum, the supreme strategist, will do what is commonly called “playin’ ’possum” – receding into apparent death to outwit a predator. Bear, interestingly enough, moves into hibernation in order to rejuvenate and connect with the inward “dwelling place of the Most High.”

Internal seeking-into-Knowing is necessary for our spiritual survival, and for our “thrival” as this current unique body/personality of our Soul. The dream seems to be saying that my Opossum has been playing dead long enough and that my Bear, in fighting with his sister ’possum, is demanding to be honored, indicating it is time to look at my most dreaded experience, learn from it and let it go.

Spectacular Dew Drops - www.amazingonly.com

The greater story to which I alluded at the beginning of this narrative is unfolding for me during a summer of supreme gifts. On this very night, the two-year anniversary of that most crippling experience to which I have just referred, one of my Great Helpers has given me an article to read in which the Essence of who I AM is revealed, and I now can see and acknowledge greater truth about myself for the first time. Not only because it’s just now been revealed in print in a major magazine (IONS) and places “me” in a particular group of people, but because that placement is within the context of a sacred purpose.

That greater story is one in which I, along with many others on this little planet, am viewed as the actual embodiment of the movement away from the “split from Nature on which the Western ego, as we know it, has been built.” We/I are/am known to Jungian analyst Jerome S.Bernstein as “Borderlanders” living in what Bernstein calls “The Borderland,” which he describes as a “phenomenon of the collective unconscious.” It is what he calls “that psychic space where the overspecialized Western ego is in the process of reconnecting with its split-off roots in Nature.”

The Greenhouse Effect - nerdtreasure.com

He speaks of this as “a profound, psychic process in which the very psychological nature and structure of the Western ego is evolving through dramatic changes.”

It moves me profoundly to at last be able to feel validation and, oddly, appreciation for the traumas I’ve experienced  as a result of the ways in which I must move through this realm, this “home” where I have never truly felt at Home. And it comforts me at a very deep level to know that I am not alone in the ways that I relate to the world, not to mention at last recognizing that I am not the puppet of an uncaring, unyielding God, but am instead one of many Bridges between the seen and the unseen, individuals who know the unseen is more truly Real than the seen, and who know that I (and others like me) are bringing Home back to the human heart.

Again, in my early years and to this day, my true heart’s emotional connection has been available to me mostly through the realm of Nature—Wind, Water, Stone, Wood, Earth, Sky, Finned, Feathered, Furred—and in the movement of

Camel in the wind

music and words, either paired or separated. These are my elemental connections of true memory, are where I own a dwindled and banked, yet still-lit fire in the stillness of Knowing. I say dwindled because I once agreed somewhere along the way to the lie that I am flawed, broken, pathologically skewed—a view hard not to agree with at times in this Western, parts-is-parts medical-model culture. When one feels viscerally the rape of the earth, when one experiences internally the torture of animal slaughter, yet is asked—forced even—to witness it all as if it were not what it in reality is, one must work doubly hard to find a desire to remain on the planet. And finding a trutstworthy context of purpose in one’s Beingness becomes a necessity. Finding this place of belonging has seemed impossible, till now that is.

As a Bridge of Knowing between the seen and the unseen, I am only beginning to scratch the surface of how to, with some measure of hoped-for ease, comfort, peace, be in this world. I started to add “and not of it,” but I am of it. Made of precious earth elements, I am truly a unique particle in the body of the One and an integral part of this Universe of movement and balance. And IT, this great Home, is also in me. As within, so without. As above, so below.

Were I not here, clearly a part of that balance would be missing. Because I am here, I will remain and do my part: hold a space; be a bridge. Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing, no longer something to fear, but a rather a necessary posting. Like the soldier longing to desert his post during a long night’s watch, I have surely wished from time to time to leave. Not now, though; not yet. And, by my choice, not anytime soon. Here’s hopin’ the lords, too, are willin’ that the crik won’t rise. But if it does, may the bridge be high and strong enough to hold – and I to wait, knowing that the waters always recede.

Bridge over Waters - art.com

 

© Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder, 2000-2011 (slight revisions, 2011). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On Nine Eleven . . .

Sep 11th, 2011 by Amy Pierce

The following is the text of the talk I gave at North Raleigh Community Church as part of the community’s Peace Meditation Day, September 11, 2010

Holdings of the Heart, September 11, 2010

“Peace” … If we are attentive enough to notice, just hearing the word brings a body sensation, the nature of which is determined by one’s personal experience of both the word and the state of being. We cannot “wage peace” the way we “wage war” and hope to achieve peace. We can only be peace and know peace, and thus reflect this inner state back to a

Sacred Site Decorated With Lungta (Tibetan Prayer Flags) www.tibettruth.com

hungry world, a world starving for both peace and unity.

One of the things I did in preparing for today was to turn to what I wrote on September 12, 2001. I’d like to share an excerpt from “Essay on the Day After:”

On the first day after the day of my country’s greatest tragedy, I sit at my keyboard transcribing the personal journal of a World War II medical doctor stationed on a cruiser in the Pacific. As I type, I am also listening to NPR coverage of yesterday’s terrorist attack on the United States. The two activities – transcribing and listening – represent events fifty-seven years apart, yet common threads run through both. My professional work with the war journal now sits juxtaposed against my personal work with my heart’s pain, confusion, and grief. I know that the roots of war extend deeply into our collective past, where they breathe beneath our best intentions and hopes for peace. I know, too, that our collective heart is simply not yet beating as one, hasn’t quite aligned to the ultimate truth that we are one – literally – with all that is, a now irrefutable truth that is clearly not yet penetrating the hard-rock foundation upon which all conflict so piously stands.

In spite of the polarization still surrounding us, I can see that the collective heart is beginning – beginning – the alignment I wrote about in 2001. The truth of oneness, long the foundational pillar of our spiritual traditions, is also a fundamental conclusion of quantum physics, and it seems that science and spirituality (if not yet religion) are seated now at the same sacred campfire, savoring the marshmallow sweetness, while determining the implications, of our literal interconnectedness. Physicists like the late David Bohm have known for some time that space and time are composed of the same essence of matter; that pairs of electrons, even millions of miles apart from each other, communicate through a cosmic sea of consciousness. The Ogallala Medicine Man, Black Elk, said: “Peace..comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship – their oneness – with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at

Holocaust Memorial / Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

the center of the Universe dwells Wakan Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” And from best-selling author Gregg Braden, “The sooner we recognize our relationship with the world around us, the sooner we recognize our inner choice of peace mirrored as gentle weather patterns, the healing of our societies, and peace between nations.”

Now more than ever, it is time to do the deeply personal, yet never private healing work that reignites our innate reverence for life and allows the embodiment of the Ultimate Reality, our At-One-Ment, our Oneness. If humanity suddenly awakened to its Oneness with All That Is, peace on earth would manifest in an instant, one heart at a time. Today, September 11, 2010, I am still hopeful that the separation illusion, that division called Them or Me, will in my lifetime give way to the unity of Us and We.

In your moments of stillness today, ponder the idea that I am another you and you are another me, and that what I do to you, I do to myself. From this place of reference, it’s easy enough to see that if I cannot love and honor myself, then I can easily harm that “other me” that is showing up as “you.” In living intentionally within the reality of Oneness, the way that I am literally my brother’s keeper is by taking complete responsibility for my personal thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Examining the motivations for my actions will lead to the awareness of my underlying fears and fearful beliefs, and ultimately to the choice to speak and act from love rather than fear, to live from the reality of unity rather than the illusion of separateness.

Such self-awareness is best served by looking deeply at the holdings of the heart – those wounds, beliefs, and resulting self-rejection and pain that continue to cause suffering for ourselves and others. We then must become willing to make a commitment to attend to that pain by taking responsibility for healing it. Most of the deepest pain is a shared pain, which at its core is the result of the mistaken belief that I call the World’s Great Lie, that we are not worthy and, therefore, not good or lovable enough. When we connect with this most damaging of all beliefs, we open the door to remembering and claiming the truth: our worth is not in question, and we, having come from the Great Love That Imbues All Things With Itself, are deserving of our own and others’ love.

When I finally come to awaken to both the knowledge and the feeling of my and others’ worth, I cannot help but forgive us all for the outward projection of our unexamined personal and collective fear and pain, which we only project because we are asleep to the truth of our worth and the worth of all our kin.

In the beginning, it can simply be through changing our behaviors that we see some of the life-giving results we’ve longed to experience. Ultimately, it is in the embodied feeling of oneness with all things, with all life, that our innate reverence for life is uncovered. Oneness in action, what I call “Doing the Oneness,” means, to quote Machaelle Small Wright, “behaving as if the God in all life mattered.” It is important to understand that “all life” means “all manifestation,” not just the human sort. Passion flares in flesh and bone, spirit breathes inside a stone. And all life – whether stone, tree, ocean, kitten – has specific properties needed by the whole. For example, evergreen trees neutralize the impact of our angry words; sitting still while holding a stone can bring one to a settled state of deep peace, a quality held for us by the stone itself.

In Doing the Oneness as daily practice we eventually come to the sense that separateness and its duality state of superiority/inferiority has cleared from our energy field. Then, one day, one moment, something may happen to make the separation state rear its head. When it does, if we’re committed to living from the highest place possible we have an obligation to do what we can to return to love. Let me give you an example from my own life with another excerpt from “Essay on the Day After”…

Most of us, when pushed far enough, are capable of another’s destruction. As I read more of the doctor’s war journal this morning, I am struck by the deep psychological need to view another as the very incarnation of evil in order to be able to destroy that human being, that brother of my heart.

Reuters image of Ground Zero Memorial

Yesterday, as I began to feel anxiety and fear rising within me after watching the second airliner deliberately crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, I found parts of myself I had not consciously been aware of rising up to greet me as an invitation to examine the Them or Me mentality still hiding in the shadows. I found my normally pacifist self suddenly saying things like, “Why the hell doesn’t the military send up fighter jets?” Looking over my shoulder to see who might be speaking, I saw only my own fear – for my homeland, for my personal survival.

I looked up then and saw my Earth Flag, one of many that have flown on my front porch for more than twenty years. I’ve kept them there because I love this Earth so very much, and because I believe that whatever God is, it does not play favorites. In a neighborhood of red, white, and blue, an Earth Flag is my statement of Oneness, unity, and universalism. I found that Tuesday morning that it doesn’t take long, especially in times of great trial, to find vestiges of all sorts of “isms” – racism, sexism, elitism, absolutism – along with lots of other fear-based stances used to separate ourselves from one another. On this day, an “ism” arose in me that I couldn’t recall experiencing before. What I can only label a super patriotism compelled me – almost – to go downtown to B&W Hardware and buy an American flag. The unexpected patriotism evaporated when I consciously chose to put myself in the place of both the ones who attacked and the ones so understandably devastated and outraged by the attack. I could literally feel the immense pain of this “shot heard ’round the world” reverberating throughout the universe, and I could feel it from all the perspectives represented. It was because I had been “doing the Oneness” and attending to my heart’s holdings that my Soul as Observer, my Authentic Self, rose up to provide the unique vantage point. From this place, I was awed, shocked, and grieved by the power of “Them or Me” – that is, fear and separation – when it trumps “Us and We” – love and unity. In that moment, the isms dropped away and all that remained was the view through the eyes of the One we all are.

As I said a few minutes ago, we can’t wage peace; we can only be peace. For most of us, being peace isn’t something that comes easily; it isn’t something that just “moves in” like a roommate or a friend. The truth is, Peace is our True Nature and it sits within us already, albeit like an impacted Wisdom tooth. Peace is held within the deepest part of us, the unencumbered Heart, which is not a place that many of us know well. Listening to our heart’s stories with compassion and mercy is where we must begin in order to dwell as fully as we can in a state of peace and to extend that peace to this hungry world, this Great Village of Humanity. I live by the message from Mary Lou Kownacki: “Engrave this upon my heart: There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story.”

If I allow myself to look beyond all the isms of this world and just look into the face of another, I cannot help but see her as myself. I see pain and hope, fear and joy in his eyes,

Afghan women and children (www.womenfound.org)

eyes just like mine, eyes that long for Love, despite the appearance, for the eyes are literally the window of the soul. How can I hurt you if I see your pain, unless I am unwilling to face my own? Surely this is the key to loving my brother as myself – first I must love myself. To do so means I must embrace my own suffering. Without my willingness to move within those amber waves of pain, I cannot nurture you with my harvested experience of self-acceptance and self-forgiveness, cannot give you the blessed water of deeply understanding your own suffering and your own need for forgiveness.

The word “forgive” when turned around is “give for.” I say that forgiveness ought to be understood this way: “Now that I’m awake to Oneness, and now that I’m awake to the consequences of our unexamined pain, what will I now GIVE FOR what I gave then, for what I gave when I was asleep?” Viewed this way, forgiveness is a balancing act come from self-awareness and self-responsibility, rather than blame and a need for payment. I think that to turn the other cheek is not about opening oneself to additional mistreatment, but about turning toward the truth – and holding the truth for all life – that those perpetrating harm have simply forgotten the need to look within the holdings of their heart; they have forgotten the unchanging truth of their own worthiness, as well as mine. And they no longer remember the truth of our inseperableness.

Through faithfully healing the holdings of the heart, which sit atop our innate peace, we become a healing presence in the world. As that healing presence, we more easily hold ourselves and each other in love through the reality of our oneness, our “Inter-beingness,” as Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace nominee Thich Nhat Hahn

Photo by NamraAravinda

calls it, rather than view each other through a glass darkly, a lens of separateness and fear. And as I found out nine years ago (and several times since), even though certain festering fearful parts of myself can still arise, when they do I am able to call upon the truth of worthiness, of Oneness, and the Love That Made Us All to center and hold me. I’d like to share Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem, Interrelationship:

You are me, and I am you.

Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”?

You cultivate the flower in yourself,

so that I will be beautiful.

I transform the garbage in myself,

so that you will not have to suffer.

I support you;

you support me.

I am in this world to offer you peace;

you are in this world to bring me joy.

Once I open my heart to healing by experiencing myself as the Love that I Am, the original Love that created me does, in fact, heal me. I do my healing work for the sake of you-as-me and for the seven generations that I stand in the middle of. I do it so that you and I will no longer suffer by my heart and hand. My healing, then, while personal is never private. My healing and your healing both lift the world.

The peace that passeth understanding is the peace of the Whole and Holy Heart, which is rooted in Divine Oneness and held in the Heart and Halo of Heaven, that Divinity that sees us all as sparks of Itself and awaits our own recognition of the peace that we are. As you listen to Judy Collins singing Deep Peace take into your heart that you are truly one with the running wave, the flowing air, the quiet earth, the shining stars, and the gentle night; take in, too, that you and I can only see ourselves when we look into the mirror of each other’s eyes. “Peace I leave to you; my peace I bring to you.”

Blessed be.

© Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

 

 

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Of Dentin and Dentists, of Harlequins and The Jabok

Sep 6th, 2011 by Amy Pierce

The urging comes to write, but not the knowing of what is to be written. I haven’t a need to chronicle the day; other pages exist for that. So I’ll yell “uncle” and give in to self-revelation by writing about the most recent wrestling match.

Pinata Harlequin by Alberto Padilla

“Helplessly hoping, her harlequin hovers nearby awaiting a word.” Readers of a certain age will recognize the quoted lyric as coming from a Stephen Stills song, Helplessly Hoping, made famous by Crosby, Stills and Nash in the early ’70s. The word “harlequin” derives from the middle French “helquin,” meaning demon. Ultimately, though, the word came to mean those masked court buffoons clad in brightly colorful diamond-patterned pantaloon costumes, the Fools we’ve so often seen in films and plays.

"Harlequin" by Emin Guliyev

Truth is, I need to call upon a harlequin, one I hope has been hovering and awaiting my word, to rid myself, if not for all, at least for once, of a helquin that’s been trailing me all my life. I’d like to think that the buffoon and the demon could square off and that the sheer idiocy and tom-foolery of the buffoon would send my nemesis running for the river, never to be heard from again. And if ever I’ve needed a lighter perspective, it’s now when I’m face to face with a dreaded darkness that I have lived with for so long: having to submit to medical/dental procedures and the terror they bring. It’s the sort of fear that can only come from past lives still active in memory; this is surely that. So this blog post is my helplessly hoping calling forth of some hovering Gay (as in the old definition) Fool, replete with diamonds and blousy pants.

In one’s late-middle age certain things have a way of coming to call, sort of like an expiration date appearing all of a sudden, but often more slowly and noticeably over time. The helquin knocking on the door at this particular moment has its roots (pun intended) in my mouth: several of my teeth are in need of “major” (read “scary, expensive, would rather die than face”) dental work. All of this would still feel beyond possible even if money were mine to be had. “Money??? What’s that?” the scullery maid sarcastically asks the cook, who just looks at her. “Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughs the harlequin as he turns handsprings across the king’s table so as to keep attention off the scullery maid, all the while being chased by the helquin with the sovereign’s carving knife.

After realizing that I wasn’t likely to die before I had to do something about all this mouth stuff, and after discharging terribly hard (read “sobbing, slobbering, nose-pouring; shaking, shi_ _ing, sleeping”), I wrote the essay that appears just before this one on this blog, Walking, Not Crawling, Toward Elysium. And then I began “doing the next right thing,” the first of which was to send an email to my “Sistahs” – a support group made up of ministers, nuns, a priest and a rabbi.

Mr. H.

Meanwhile, in a break from the chase and while having a drink together at the local watering hole . . .  “Did you hear the one about the priest and the rabbi who walked up to the nun in the bar and…?” queries the happy harlequin of the diabolical demon, who of course interrupts the question with one of his own, “What the he_ _ do I care about your religiosity? Off with your head!” and chases the Fool out the door. The laugh was on the demon this time, though, because the Fool, who’d hidden behind the big Wooden Indian outside and just to the right of the salloon door, pulled down the pants of the haughty helquin when he turned left to see where the funny fool had run off to. Of course, it made Mr. H. quite angry.

In my note to The Sistahs I wrote, among other things: I’m praying to find someone kind and gentle and good who will do the work pro bono. And I’m praying for the reduction of fear, the presence of the ability to think clearly (which I’m having a lot of trouble doing), and the advent of peace and calm. Please join me. As a result, I now have an appointment with the Rabbi’s friend and dentist this Thursday at 2:30. It took a week, though, after receiving the Rabbi’s “Good News for Modern Man” for me to contact Dr. Siegel because the buffoon, thinking only of himself, left for his annual August week in the Catskills (who knew??) and I had to wrestle with the demon some more.

He also kept me up this morning from 3:00 till 7:30 when I finally went back to sleep, but not before reading many pages in an older metaphysics book, How to Do All Things: Your Use of Divine Power. From the reading: Your kingdom far surpasses an Earthly kingdom, and it already has been prepared for you. All you need do is learn to assume your authority. The government of your kingdom is divine law. The people of your kingdom are your own thoughts. This is the analogy the Hebrew, Christian and other Bibles use: kings represent the personal conscious self, and people represent the thoughts of that self.

After all that discharge I mentioned earlier, I eventually found that I’d been emptied out. All that was left was a hollow knowing that I could do nothing but what had to be done. Since I was not a’tall willing to take my own life (if the demon managed it, well…) I was going to have to find a way to nod, rather than shake my head. I’m no biblical scholar the way my Sistahs are, but as I think of these three weeks I can see that I’ve somehow crossed the Jabok, that river in the Bible where Jacob wrestles with the angel and “comes to terms” . . .  with Self/self and with God.

Jabok means to be emptied, or to be poured out. And that’s where I’ve been; that’s what’s happened to me. I was emptied of certain normal-for-me states of being. I’ve kept quiet till now, kept my own counsel as they say, most unusual for me. And I’ve been gifted, presumably through the discharge and the river wrestle, with some deepened ability to claim a certain amount of authority over my thoughts, and to somehow keep them much more still than ever before. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not without trepidation. I am, though, treating this as a tremendous spiritual passage and clearing, as something that I believe has to happen before any of the other things I truly long for can possibly come to pass. I came to the river and had no way to go except across, and that meant under and inward. So, as lovingly as possible, I slogged and swam through the shame I’ve carried (seemingly forever) about all of this. Some of it has vanished, thanks to some Sistahs; a sizeable portion remains.

I always do much better if I feel that I have a relationship, a partnership with the professional under whose care I’m placing myself. In writing this, I’m putting into the ethers my hope and prayer that Dr. Siegel won’t judge me as harshly as I’ve judged myself all these years and will instead partner me, not only through kindness, which I imagine she posesses in great measure, but also with an understanding, even if not conscious, of the courage that I have had to pull from somewhere deep in the rivers of myself so that I can walk into her office and sit in her chair and not get up till she says it’s time. And yes, I can do that whether she gets the message through the ethers or not, but it will be a hundred times easier the other way.

Rite of Passage by Nancy Zimmerman

In Chinese Medicine, the Heart is seen as the Sovereign of the kingdom; in human terms it is the place of partnership, communication, courage, and love. It’s where the great “for the sake of” resides. It’s also the place of fun and joy. So as the brightly clad harlequin continues wrestling with MaryMary, the quite contrary helquin, I’m looking for things to laugh and giggle about, along with a few ironies to appreciate. If anyone has some of those to share this week, I welcome your contributions. Meanwhile, I am creating meaning and purpose in the task at hand by becoming mindful of my own “for the sake of,” which is that I, in part, took life this time to work with and clear as much as possible of this issue of loss of control and lack of safety, which is what medical and dental procedures create within my emotional body. Obviously, this is my Jabok experience (or one of them, and believe me, there have been many). In this one, as in another about thirteen years ago, I have had to let go of all that I so desperately want to hold onto and say “yes” to a long night with “the devil” of my fear.

“What do you get when you cross the devil with the saint?” riddles the Gay Fool, who has no answer, of course. The helquin might, if I let him speak. If you have an answer, send it to me on a postcard with two wooden nickels taped to the back. The best answer brings the winner a free subscription to my Joke of the Month Thought. Oh, shoot. I just realized that if you want the prize, you’ll have to be clairvoyant to enter the contest. You could always ask Mr. H. for help, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

© Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


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Walking, Not Crawling, to Elysium

Aug 23rd, 2011 by Amy Pierce

It’s Saturday, July 16, 2011. I’m lying on my bed, unusually tired after delivering a workshop. I’m resting and doing an energy movement exercise before, hopefully, falling asleep for awhile. I don’t have much experience with the exercise, at least no results-oriented experience of it. But as the ever-faithful, ever-hopeful (and quite weary) warrior-servant, I do my duty to Heaven and country; that is, to the Kingdom of my BodyMindSpirit . . . Breathing in I imagine my ankle joints expanding just a little bit to permit energy to flow down into my feet, which I then encourage to “melt” into the bed; next I imagine my knees expanding just a bit to allow the energy to flow into my lower  legs so they, too, can melt into the bed. And on it goes as I work up my body, joint by joint, area by area. I don’t feel anything but the exhaustion, don’t remember when I’ve been so tired. But I keep going . . . Suddenly I’m “Betweens,” which is what I call the space between waking and sleeping, a realm in which I sometimes see people and hear snippets of mundane conversations just before falling fully to sleep. But this Betweens is nothing like the ones I’m familiar with. Oh, my, nothing at all like that! No, this is a pure gift from what I can only call All That’s Good. In this Betweens I’m the only one here, and I’m being transported above the still, still sound, that curving blue channel snaking through my beloved saltwater marshes, the living green and blue all I see.

Okavanga Delta, Africa

I suddenly understand that I am not, as presumed, in a boat at all. I am the “boat”, the transport. I’m moving above the water. Am I “flying”? I can’t say, but I’m very much enjoying the pace. Not slow, not fast, but rapid enough to appreciate the joy of effortless movement while being, at the same time, completely entranced and satiated by the curving channel of brilliant blues and greens as I glide along through it all.

And then thought comes.

“This is what I’m doing! The energy is clearing out from the channels of my body! And I find myself gliding through the marsh once more. A second trip and then, oh so amazed and grateful, I come out of this seminal moment, this glorious Betweens to find all exhaustion has evaporated and left my body feeling normal again. But not my spirit. My spirit is now soaring in gratitude for the experience. The body’s returning to normalcy so quickly, while amazing, is almost irrelevant. The physical clearing is highly unusual for me and not something to be dismissed, yet it’s the visual, sensual experience that has me tumbling into speechlessness. What doesn’t lend itself to words still wants telling. So I will share more of the tale . . .

With this one Betweens experience, the dark veil of failure and nightmare I’ve lived behind suddenly retreated and fell back in the ranks thanks to this first gift of Opening so long in the making – thirty years of expecting, waiting, begging, demanding, praying, and all but giving up hope, still aching for the sort of experiences many of my friends routinely have. Though not just for want of such experiences, as the years have gone by, I’ve come to feel what a moth caught in a web must feel like. My web is sticky with frustration, anger, and depression brought on by efforts that come to so little and that leave my dreams unfulfilled. In fact, I recently told someone that I’d forgotten how to dream. In saying so, I felt very, very sad. Over the years my expectations and hopes of multi-level healing eroded and led me to a defeatist conclusion: “Nothing can help me.” A desolate place to live, believe me. But I decided that, if that was true, I would still do what I could to be a light for others and to somehow facilitate their healing.

With the “nothing can help me” conclusion, I’ve felt something of what one exiled from the tribe must feel. Yet not so much the pariah, for I came to see that this was not a forced exile in any way, at least not from the outside. It was just a a place in which I found myself, alone and separate, and feeling barred from something. But barred from what, exactly? God? Home? Light? Healing? my Self? but perhaps my Greater Self more than anything.

Now apparently the web is breaking apart; something has happened that allows me more access to the parts of myself that have lived in exile, lived in the dark and cold of things. Never before have I been able to visualize; neither have I been able to see colors or scenes in my mind. Nor am I doing that now. But something in me has opened a door for me, and for such things to be received. Without my knowing how, some sort of Grace has arrived bearing gifts of salt water and grasses. Nothing could have come to me that I would have trusted more than these images.

And it goes on. At early dawn the day before the marsh and sound came calling, I woke to another unexpected Grace. Having slept all night in my front porch swing, sometime around 5:30 I found myself coming out of a Betweens, at least I think that’s what was happening. Before opening my eyes, I was seeing rapid flashes of light, lightning-like behind my lids. Beyond the lightning I could just barely see a landscape infused by golden light, the sort of light I sometimes see in late afternoons when cloud, ground, and sun commune in some common agreement to turn the ordinary into the ethereal. With my eyes still closed that early morning, the thought came: The Elysian Fields.*

Elysium and its fields of gold (at least I imagine it thus) has been pulling on me for many years, reaching out through some ancient cord of mutual attachment. This pull is not unlike the longing I experienced  from childhood through my mid-twenties when, during the dimming-of-the-day time, I quite simply wanted to melt into the sunset. I thought everyone felt that way. But the few times I mentioned it to someone my words were met with silence.

Elysian Fields, by R. Atkinson Fox, circa 1920s

I learned quickly that my longing for Home was not one I ought share, since other youngsters obviously didn’t remember Home the way I seemed to. And so I kept my Self to myself.

Ezra Pound in “Cantos” wrote, What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee; what thou lov’st well is thy true heritage. The desire for melting into the sunset dimmed over the past three decades as my life and body became more and more painful, not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually. And the years of exile have taken their toll. “Yet in the dark and cold of things, there always, always something sings.”** And so I somehow continued making my way through as best I could by deliberately, albeit slowly, crawling to Elysium and its fields.

It seems now that the road I’ve been crawling on for so long may, just may be beginning to straighten out in front of me. There may now be a village ahead that I’ve not yet seen. The straightening of the road would indicate no hindrances, and the message that comes tells me that ahead of me on this road stands a Tree (the Tree of Life?) and that arcing over it, from left to right, is a rainbow (the Promise?).

We shall see what we shall see. At least I feel that I am now walking, not crawling, to Elysium. And that, my loves, is a good, good thing to feel.

 

 

*Elysium; Elysian Fields: 1) any place or state of perfect happiness; 2) the abode of the blessed after death

**From Something Sings, by Libera (click link in text above for lyrics and to hear the song)

© Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

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Diamond in My Eye

Aug 11th, 2011 by Amy Pierce

Caribbean Stars (click to enlarge)

I have reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland.*

Forty five minutes ago I walked out into the night to put two more aluminum cans into the street-side recycling bin; late, with no one around except those in their beds that chorus the day and those in the grounds – tree, shrub, earth – that chorus the night. Diamonds glistening in the amalgam that makes up the street, “shining like a National guitar”* and twinkling overhead behind those layers and piles, pillows of midnight fluff-stuff we call clouds. I’d just finished watching the documentary, Fierce Grace, about Ram Das’s life after “being stroked.” The stroke is “the path” for him now, the way IN.

Under the diamonds above me and atop those below my feet (I had diamonds on the soles of my shoes**), I said to The Ram (God), “Open me in such a way that I cannot deny the You of Me.”  And then I came in and wrote down these words:

Diamonds in the streets

Diamonds in the skies

Lucy’s running wild behind

The diamonds in her eyes

It’s all a crazy dream

Till the moment that we die

When everything that seems

Is but a twinkle in The Eye

“Open me” I say “so I nevermore deny

The Ram beneath my feet

The Ram behind the sky”

When Lucy’s running wild

She’s still a diamond in His Eye

And when I lay me down

I’ll be the diamond in My Eye.

 

*Paul Simon, from Graceland

**Paul Simon, thanks to Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes

© Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Swingin’ in The Rain

Aug 1st, 2011 by Amy Pierce

Swingin’ in the Rain

The relentless heat persisting, I’d been out a time or two by dawn’s early light for groceries, and daily in the wee-hours to water two lonely, thirsty plants (tomato and pepper). And I’d been fortunate to get to the chiropractor on the one day of her “early hours,” twelve till three. Wednesday noon found me face down on my favorite table. Like the plants, my parched body and spirit had been crying out for a long-awaited “watering.” A few more days of waiting remained till the weatherman’s promise might come true: rain and lower temps on the weekend.

Saturday evening, the long dry heat at last breaking and real rain waiting for just the right atmosphere to set it a’goin’, I eased outside to see what life out there might feel like and found the evening as much a gift from the gods as  my Wednesday “watering” had been. Master of all I surveyed, I walked once ’round the yard, a few drops of sky-elixir patting my arms and face. On my second trip, the rain coming easy and soft, my ever-patient friend (the one with its ropey connection high up the mulberry) called out to me. Hanging there day after day, moon after moon, it meditates, I imagine, while waiting for me or the fickle wind to set it a’goin’. Sometimes, though, when I watch it from the office window, it seems to move gently all on its own.

“It’s been a while,” I said as I sat down on the wide lap of the tree swing. “You know I never forget you. But do you know how much more often I’d love to be here? If my arms and legs would let me, we’d be together all the time.”

And then I sang. We both did.

“I’m swingin’ in the rain, just swingin’ in the rain, what a glorious feelin’, I’m happy again! I walk down the lane with a happy refrain, I’m swingin’, just swingin’ in the rain.”

 

© Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Playing “Winter”

Jul 14th, 2011 by Amy Pierce

We’ve just come out of the summer’s first heat wave in central and southern N.C. Two days of hundred-degree heat that felt like 110! Short-lived, thank anyone’s lucky stars, and thanks to a cold front coming through last night bringing rain, northeast breezes, and lower temps and dew points.

I’m no fan of the heat, not anymore. Looking back on all those years living at the beach and being in the sun . . . it’s hard to believe that was me. Must have been another me. I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now, so sang The Byrds. Now I’m like a baby who needs bonneting. Have you noticed - today’s young parents seldom put either bonnets on their babies heads or socks on their feet? And many’s the time that I see those little sausage-legs uncovered, splotched with cold during the winter. Makes me want to “jerk a knot in somebody”! as my mama has been known to say.

No, I’m no fan of the heat. Not since The Episode. July ?, 2006 was a bad year. Seemed like a year. A hundred-degree day and me driving on Capital Boulevard at three in the afternoon when the air conditioner quit. I’ve not  been the same since; all sorts of things changed the day of The Episode. Anticipatory panic, fear, and worry rides my running board* now. And so this past Tuesday and Wednesday, anticipating all sorts of potential heat horrors, I woke up the morning of the first wave and had the thought (I do believe it was given to me), “Play Winter.” And so I did! I had a blast. Damn the power bill, full steam, er “ice” ahead! Sweat pants, turtleneck, scarf, and down quilt for me, little blankies for Ginger. And so we weathered the weather, peaceably and with enjoyment, watching movies, reading, napping, skating across the kitchen floor. Late on the first afternoon, Gabe and Deana drove over with their own warm clothes and “The Princess Bride.” A great time was had by all.

Interesting how one can receive “permission” for different experiences, different ways of being. The “permission” comes from within and feels like grace. That’s what these two days were like. And oh my! The moment the storms rolled in late afternoon yesterday, I flung open doors and windows! Done playing winter, I put back on shorts and a t-shirt. The fan once again brought in night air, floating upon it the aroma of all-but gone gardenias, brought it to blow right into my face all night long while I slept with a foot (or two; sometimes both legs) hanging outside the two baby blue, baby down blankets I had stitched together to make one just long enough for me.

I’ve spent most of today on the porch. It’s 2:30 and only now beginning to be a bit warmer than I prefer. But my close friend the little porch fan, “Cool-Breeze” (as the TM on the front says)  is doing its job. I’ll stay here awhile longer, pushing the envelope, but not close to anything kin to The Episode. Hellfire, no way! And I’ll read a bit more. Right now it’s May Sarton’s Eighty Two, A Journal and Neale Walsch’s unusually written biography of Conscious Evolutionist Barbara Marx Hubbard, entitled The Mother of Invention. I highly recommend the latter. And in a while, I’ll get myself ready to drive to Durham for a first-in-a-week adjustment at the chiropractor’s – am I ready for that, or what?

According to the weatherman, it looks like I’ll be playing Winter again next week. The game just might get old. But I ‘spec it will be necessary many times between now and October.

May the force of a northeast gale be with you.

*A running board was a wide “perch” extending beyond the doors of cars many years ago. Parallel to the ground, one could stand upon the running board, hanging on to the door post as the car went down the road. I miss running boards. Oh, and vent windows, little windows in the door that rotated inward to allow the wind to funnel right to your face. Yes, the good old days were good for lots of reasons. Two of the best were running boards and vent windows.

© Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amy Pierce and In Spiritual Wonder with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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