by Petrea King
My umbrella blew inside out the moment I stepped outside, and soon the rain came down in torrents, but I continued my sodden way to the church. When I stepped inside the vestibule, I saw the Irish priest standing at the altar and speaking to an empty church. I went to the front pew, dripping, and sat down. The priest continued with the mass. Even though I’d heard it many times, I had no clear idea what the responses should be, so I made up ones that seemed familiar or appropriate. It was obvious to him, no doubt, that I wasn’t a Catholic.
The wind buffeted and tugged at the roof, its metal struts and timber supports creaking in the turmoil. Thunder roared, lights flickered, and the priest finally completed the mass. He then disappeared behind the altar and reappeared a few minutes later minus his robe and in his everyday clothes. He invited me to sit somewhere quiet until the deluge had stopped or at least slowed.
I followed him to a small windowless room, and we sat together while he asked why I’d come to mass during such a fierce storm. I explained that I’d felt a strong urge and didn’t really know why. Then I asked him where he was from and how long he would stay in Sorrento. He came from Belfast, he said, and he was grateful to get away for the summer season to avoid the heartache he’d witnessed at home. His duty was often to go into houses where sons, brothers and fathers wouldn’t return and break this dreadful news to the women.
The lights kept flickering and then went off altogether. We sat in the dark as his story poured out. He was questioning his faith: he could no longer bear the pain of knocking on the doors of parishioners who had become casualties. How could a loving god watch while beautiful young people were killed in their prime? What sort of god wouldn’t intervene to prevent such awful grief among the families left fatherless? What was the point of redemption when all life was suffering and nothing had meaning? Was everything he’d been taught some sort of sick fairytale? Perhaps Jesus had never existed and there was no heaven, just a hell here on Earth.
The priest wept and railed and sobbed his heart out while we sat in total darkness, the storm raging outside and another raging within. Finally, his story was done. The heaviness of the rain subsided and the lights flickered into life. He shook my hand without embarrassment, as if nothing had transpired between us, and we parted.
I hadn’t said a word. There had been no need. I was grateful and humble to have borne witness to his suffering.
***
Being away from Ada and Simon was difficult and painful, and I often wondered when the time would be right to return to them. Swami said he was concerned about my returning to Australia too soon; he thought I would get sicker, especially if I was to try and mother the children against Leo’s wishes.
Every day that I spent away from Ada and Simon, I sent them a postcard. I still have a pile of them, which my mother kept for me, and the bottom of each one says, ‘I’m sending you rainbows to carry my love to you’ or similar words to remind them we were always linked through the loving connection of the rainbow.
Rainbows go as far as you need them to, and my children both say it was the rainbow that kept me alive for them during that difficult time. They shared a room, and every night they sat on one of their beds together, holding hands while Ada talked Simon through the process of sending me a rainbow, then sending their love and blessings across to me like fairy dust. The rainbow was as important to me as it was to them—indeed, it was a blessing to us all.
Leo remained angry with me, and there was no point in trying to help him see reason. I knew that if I was determined to be a mother to my children, the cost would be my health and likely my life, because emotional conflict is exhausting.
My health, physical and mental, was still precarious. My energy levels fluctuated dramatically, and some glands in my neck were hard and unyielding, while others had reduced and softened. My inner turmoil and sadness hadn’t abated; when I wasn’t in the cathedral, I ached for a quiet space in which to rest, meditate and be alone.
I yearned for a lasting, unshakeable peace. I often experienced deep peace, but it didn’t help me process my tumult of emotions. In fact, I often used meditation as a way of not feeling those emotions. I had developed many disciplines to control my mind to the point where if I didn’t want to acknowledge or experience an unpleasant feeling, I could always shift my focus elsewhere.
CHAPTER 18
Escape to the country
With Swami, my friends and several of the Sorrento congregation members, I travelled to a magnificent villa high in the mountains above Lake Como near the tiny town of Veglio. The woman who owned the villa was a devotee of Swami and had gifted him the use of her home for the summer.
People were congregating from all over Europe for a series of lectures that Swami would deliver in French, German, Italian, Spanish and English—these were only five of the many languages he spoke fluently. I was unsure how I would manage the company of so many people.
We travelled to Lake Como via Assisi, and I was struck by the sweetness that imbued the picturesque hills surrounding the town. The distinctive pink stone buildings of Assisi glowed in the morning sun like jewels on the hill. We only stayed there for a couple of days, but it touched my heart and I hoped to return.
By the time we arrived at the villa and settled into our rooms, I was already feeling overwhelmed by the number of people arriving.
When I’d said to Swami that I didn’t want him as my guru, he had laughed. It didn’t matter to him how I chose to see him. The deeper issue for me was his path, the path of Paramahansa Yogananda and Kriya Yoga, which I had great respect for but knew was not my path. Swami’s contribution to the betterment of the world was rich and creative, and I valued his knowledge and wisdom, yet I always knew our paths would diverge at some point. The practices, chanting and philosophy, while beautiful, didn’t resonate in my depths. I knew that my spiritual journey would lead me elsewhere, but I didn’t have a clue about what that place might be or when it might happen.
Then, abruptly, my time with Swami came to a close.
In the dining room of the villa, he and I were sitting together at a long table with many other people. My spoon was halfway to my mouth when he said, his tone kindly but forthright, ‘No one has ever asked more of me than you.’ There was a deafening silence as he continued, ‘I’ve given you everything I have. It’s time for you to leave.’ His words cut through the gathering and laid me bare.
I found it terribly hard to hear these words from Swami, especially as I already felt so physically and emotionally fragile. I was completely stunned—we’d never had a disagreement, and we’d always had a very respectful relationship. But although he’d spoken kindly, I found his words harsh, searing and final.
Everyone in the dining room stared at their plates and no doubt imagined that some transgression had brought on his injunction. Those who didn’t know me well looked askance at me, and even those who were close to me wondered what I’d done to deserve this public humiliation. I wondered this myself as his words cut deep into my fragility, and my old and familiar feelings of not belonging anywhere surfaced painfully. I may not have accepted Swami as my guru, but clearly I’d given him a good deal of power in my life. I felt a deep sense of rejection, as if I had no place to exist.
Some months later, I interpreted those same words in the opposite way to how they landed in my heart that day. At the time, I didn’t have any idea where to go or what to do. I’d already known that his work was not my work, but the end had transpired in an unexpected moment with an abruptness I hadn’t anticipated and didn’t welcome!
***
I slept fitfully that night, feeling estranged from the community members whom I thought of as my extended or, at least, spiritual family.
At 6 the next morning, Swami appeared outside the meditation room where we had just completed our morning practice—in his pyjamas, slippers and dressing-gown. I can’t convey how surprising this was. In all the time I’d worked with him and been in his home, I had never witnessed him a
ttired in anything that resembled nightwear. He was always appropriately showered and dressed when in the company of people. A hush fell over the group as Swami said he had come to speak to me.
He talked to me for five or ten minutes, though it could have been much longer or shorter, and it’s difficult for me to relay exactly what he said. For many years, I could only access his words—or the sense of them—in deep meditation, which might sound strange to some. It wasn’t an ordinary conversation, though, and other people who were present fell into a deeply meditative space while he spoke.
The gist of what he said was deeply personal but did little to assuage my sense of rejection, grief and loss. He told me who I was, why I was alive at this time on the planet, and a little of what my work was to become. He spoke kindly but with considerable authority and assurance as if his words came from somewhere else. While his words were somewhat comforting and outlined a purpose for my life, my overwhelming sense of abandonment and confusion quashed any nourishment I might have drawn from his faith in me. The picture he painted of my purpose, when I still expected to die from leukaemia, did little to nurture hope or inspire me with confidence.
When Swami finished talking, I asked him, ‘Should I return to my children?’
He thought for a moment and then said, as he had before, ‘No, I think you’ll become sicker if you return to Australia, as there’s still too much stress and discord with your former husband. The worry of having the children caught in the middle of conflict would be detrimental to both you and them.’ That was true enough, but remaining on the other side of the world without a purpose didn’t seem a good option either.
‘Where do I go, Swami?’ I asked.
Again, he reflected for a moment and then said, ‘You’ll find the place.’
I found that particularly unhelpful too.
‘What should I do, Swami?’ I asked somewhat pathetically, and his familiar response was, ‘Go and meditate.’
I tried again with, ‘Where, Swami? Where do I go to meditate?’
His final answer seemed to confirm that I was very much on my own. ‘You’ll find the place.’
During this conversation, it was as if we had all been transported into another dimension. At its conclusion, people resumed their morning activities while Swami disappeared into his private quarters, presumably to shower and dress for the day. I was left in a weird place of not belonging. To go from the heart of a spiritual community of friends to suddenly feeling an intruder on their space was disquieting to say the least.
I slowly returned to my room to pack the bag I had unpacked a couple of days before. Given it was only the size of allowable hand luggage on an aeroplane, it didn’t take long. I was too distraught to join the community for breakfast, and I was in a state of numbness when I said goodbye to several close friends knowing I might never see them again.
Just as I was leaving the main gates of the villa without a clue whether to turn left or right, Swami appeared again to say, ‘There’s always a home for you at Ananda.’ Yet I knew my time with him and my dear friends at Ananda had come to an end.
My heart was heavy as I caught a bus down the mountain to the edge of Lake Como. By the time its full magnificence came into view, I had decided to return to the sweet balm of Assisi. I simply couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. Perhaps in Assisi I could recover from the shock and shame of my exchange with Swami, which had left me feeling more lost than ever before.
CHAPTER 19
Back to the cave
It took me a couple of days to travel to Assisi, as I needed to rest on the way. I travelled by buses and trains and finally a taxi that wound its way from the station up into the beautiful walled city that gleamed a soft, heavenly pink as the sun set.
I arrived at the monastery of the Poor Clares where I found a bed until I settled upon a plan. While the monastery itself exuded a reflective peace, the busyness outside its heavy timber doors was intrusive and went on long into the night. Whenever I left the monastery, the bustle was jarring; everything around me was felt in my body, which had become supersensitive to noise, light and activity.
The next day, I retreated up Monte Subasio to the beautiful Eremo delle Carceri about 4 kilometres out of Assisi. This was the monastery where St Francis had retreated to when he wanted peace and quiet. It had been built around a series of caves where he and his followers prayed, slept and meditated.
The moment I walked in, I knew I had found my refuge. I couldn’t pull myself away from the quiet of the grounds or the wall overlooking the steep gorge that plummets to the plains of Perugia. But I had no idea if the monks accommodated tourists, as the monastery didn’t look geared up for anything but day visitors.
The last rays of the sun gradually withdrew from the distant hills, and a soft evening coolness and peace settled over the mount as the tourists left for the day. Standing alone at the parapet overlooking the gorge, I turned to find an elderly priest looking quizzically at me. We both started speaking at once and then laughed.
The priest introduced himself as Padre Ilarino. He spoke no English and my Italian was rudimentary, but this didn’t stop us from having a long conversation about life, love, God and music. As the colour drained from the landscape and lights began to twinkle far in the distance, I dug into my small bag for a portable cassette player and played him one of my favourite pieces of music, the slow movement of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor. For me, this piece captures an exquisite beauty and poignancy. We listened in silence as the strains drifted down into the gorge.
Padre Ilarino went inside but was soon back with a cassette that he played for me. His piece was the more uplifting and jubilant ‘Ode to Joy’ from the last movement of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. When the music finished, we stood there in the stillness of the evening as the monastery lights came on behind us and the first stars appeared.
Padre Ilarino beckoned me to follow him inside, where he showed me the alcoves carved out of the pinkish stone where St Francis and the monks had slept all those centuries before. These were coffin-shaped hollows just long enough to allow a small monk to lie—I imagine quite uncomfortably—on his back.
The priest then took me upstairs to a small accommodation area used for solitary retreats. It housed a rudimentary kitchen with a stove and sink, a bathroom and bedroom with a single bed, a table and chairs. I wasn’t certain what Padre Ilarino said, but I think he was happy for me to stay, because stay I did.
I was grateful to lie down and sleep after eating some fruit. I felt in my bones that I had arrived at the place of my dreams. This monastery, far from any noise except birdsong, felt perfect for the rest, solitude and reflection I craved.
The following day, I collected my few belongings from the monastery of the Poor Clares in Assisi.
***
After I’d settled in, I descended to the cave where St Francis and his followers had prayed and meditated centuries before. Many paths wind around the steep gorge to various caves that have formed naturally or in some cases have been enlarged by the monks who inhabited them.
The Grotto of St Francis is accessed from the main courtyard via two tiny chapels leading to an awkward and steep flight of stairs carved out of the pinkish stone. Just before the stairs swing around to the right to enter the cave, an open carved window overlooks the beautiful gorge. Outside this window, the tree still stands where, eight hundred years ago, St Francis preached to the birds to go to the four corners of the Earth and spread the good news of the gospel.
The cave itself is very small, perhaps 2 metres long and little more than a metre wide. There is a fenced area where St Francis sometimes slept and meditated, and monks and pilgrims often leave flowers there along with a candle. To the right of the Grotto’s entrance is a space the perfect size for one person to sit cross-legged with their back comfortably cradled by the cave. It was here I sat on that first morning and then every day for several months. All I needed was a cushion for my bony bottom.
I had always been a fan of St Francis. I loved his wild search for God and his great love of all creation. He’d had little regard for the strictures and structures of the Church, determined to experience God through raw and passionate endeavours that included enforced suffering, deprivation and gratitude for all things.
The walls of the Grotto are infused with his spirit of inquiry, and when I first sat with my back to the cave, I felt I would either die or find peace there. Francis too had come to this place determined to find union with God. I felt in good company.
As I sat to meditate on the first morning, I could no longer keep tears at bay, something I had accomplished up until then. I was terrified of weeping—I thought that if I started, I might never stop, or that I would shatter into a million fragments and never again feel whole. But Swami’s words were the catalyst for a deep catharsis, and in this sanctuary at the heart of Monte Subasio, my floodgates opened. Over the next few weeks I wept, wailed, shuddered and shook my way through countless past traumas.
I had always done my best to avoid the raw and cathartic sobbing that can accompany trauma. And I had used any number of tactics to avoid knowing myself in my depths through the lonesome exploration of my inner landscape. Yet the pathway to healing and peace often requires traversing the regions of grief, despair and sorrow without looking for distractions.
That first day was gone before I knew it, and once more Padre Ilarino appeared at my side. He helped me to my feet and led me upstairs. I entered the beautiful but simple dining room with a long, worn timber table and a wooden bench that had supported a thousand cloaked monks. Crusty white bread, a meat stew with vegetables and a goblet of wine awaited me. I stared at what Padre Ilarino had prepared, as he stood nearby with his fingers interlaced over his round little Franciscan belly. Franciscans, I was to discover, are not only exceedingly fond of their food but also believe that each course must be accompanied by a different wine.