It is my own experience that suffering is what most of us do best. And much of that suffering is a result of trying to fend off strong feelings. It is my experience that nothing works anyway. In really serious illness there often is no way out. So why not do the only thing left open, which is to rest and enjoy the light sparkling on the trees? There really is nothing else. You will think I’ve lost it, but for me the aloneness has become a very lovely thing. I do not feel alone, as in isolated or cut off. Rather this aloneness is in a sense a powerlessness, which is very peaceful. There really is nothing I or anyone can do, so I may as well smile with my little cat in my arms and live as best I can.
As I type, that cat is asking for dinner. She is really good at being present at all times, especially at dinnertime. I think she has more wisdom in her little finger than 99.999% of all the so-called teachers out there. And talk about good-looking! Only Ramana had a face as lovely as hers.
Illness (and anything else for that matter) is beyond my or anyone’s control. Sigh, I’m not very good with words. I think I’m trying to say that I have found that planning and worrying (which the mind is designed to do) go on, of course. But so what. My mind may continue to suffer, but that’s not me, so let it suffer if it wants to. It is none of my concern. There is nothing it can do anyway.
Vicki: I understand how little energy you have. If I had any choice about the matter, I would just stop everything and be like your beloved cat.
Peter: I feel my friend the cat has more competence as a healer than all of these others combined. Not to mention infinitely more compassion.
Vicki: Gurus can be just as bad as doctors.
Peter: Yes. Why anyone would want to teach (as opposed to sharing) is a mystery to me. I feel that sometimes someone has an experience and thinks he is special, so he puts up a sign and advertises his services. The desperate and the frightened come, invest heavily, and eventually end up with an experience of their own, and then put up their own sign on the street. Invisible prison walls.
It has been many years since I felt a difference between guru and student, or awakened and unawakened. It is my experience that such terms have no meaning, serving only to get in the way of time spent lying in the warm sunlight with a cat in one’s arms.
My note on this: God speaks to us in varied ways, including cats and sunlight and newfound friends. The only thing to do is listen.
Bare
Two meteors crashed through my life, leaving it the way it looks today: bare—consciously bare.
The first meteor was my youngest child’s diagnosis of a fatal cancer. She was treated at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for two years and spent the last year of her life in remission. The cancer had spread to her lungs and she was given a course of radiation. Her doctor said to us, “This will give her six months to a year and then the cancer will return.” She died on a hot July morning right after she turned seven.
My husband and I and our son Rob—dear Rob, who was only ten years old when his sister died—soldiered on. My husband immersed himself in work—a default option for many men after a loss. I was trying to live a normal life—what a joke! People looked on our family as pariahs; death shouldn’t happen to a first grader—and yet it had. All they knew to do was look the other way.
So I took my first steps on the spiritual path. I read many books, beginning with Yogananda’s classic, The Autobiography of a Yogi, and I liked the writings of Joel Goldsmith, the founder of “The Infinite Way.” It would take me many years to even begin to live a true teaching. My darkness was considerable, but I was doing all I could to stumble into light.
I was led to a great spiritual teacher, Vernon Howard. Bob and I would often fly to Las Vegas and then drive for an hour and a half to Boulder City, Nevada, to hear him speak. Powerful synchronicities guided me. The darkness of my life was made even darker by Mr. Howard, for he was a genius at bringing subconscious suffering to light. He offered no quick fixes; only a steady beam of light aimed into our darkness.
That darkness is our way of thinking and mechanical way of being. The goal is conscious living and as Vernon Howard said, “No man knowingly hurts himself.” Since all we do is hurt ourselves, the inference is that we are sleepwalking our way through life. Jesus knew this, when He said, “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.”
Twenty years or so passed and then one day Bob began to look pale and tired all the time. It was months before he was told the reason. He had multiple myeloma—a cancer of the bone marrow. I was devastated. The man who had given me strength when our daughter died was leaving me just like she had.
I wasn’t ready to give up another love, but I had no choice. They had the same prognosis: a terminal cancer with about three years to live. She died right on schedule; he eked out an extra year and a half. That was partly thanks to me, who saw to it that he didn’t miss a meal. But I paid the price. All of what I saw as my spiritual progress now took giant backward lurches. At the end of his illness I was mean and tired. I believe that is technically called burnout. It doesn’t matter what it is called. It is the dark night of the soul. But I never stopped believing in the light.
Life Is a Ballet
Life is a ballet and, although it looks and feels beautiful at times, our toes are bleeding and we wake in the night with muscle cramps. All of this strenuous effort creates beauty that is our reward.
I have never danced as hard as when my small daughter was fighting cancer. She, herself, took ballet at the age of five although she had a large muscle missing from her right leg. It contained the tumor that had to be removed. I had to stand on the sidelines and grimace as she tried to do what the healthy little girls were doing. She was thin as a rail and white as a sheet, but she persevered because what little girl doesn’t love ballet?
It was a dance of love for her, trying to give her a ‘normal’ life until she died. It was well worth it. Our Swan Lake was the real thing and, when all of the curtain calls had been taken, she never returned.
Many years have gone by since her death and I am still writing about it. I have let go of her but the lessons learned are still bearing fruit. I have learned to trust beauty, whether it is of the heart, body or soul. It is truth in motion and it requires immense effort to create what looks like effortless beauty.
I have no doubt but that the ballet of life has a master choreographer. Someone who knows who is wearing the new tutus and pink slippers; someone who trusts that the music will be sweet and that the slippers have enough resin applied before the performance.
I never see Swan Lake without being moved. The real can never be taken from us, but the illusion is poignant indeed. Every year there are new dancers in the cast and in the beginning it seems that nothing will come together at the right time.
Certainly as I danced through my daughter’s life with cancer over a period of three years, I often sat on the floor and wept, but I always got back up and played my part. I followed the doctor’s instructions to give her a normal life. That included her dancing, wincing and triumphing. Her dance teacher, of course, fell in love with her, as did all who came to know her brave spirit. Love knows the steps that it must take in the ballet of life.
The Great Physician
In the midst of suffering and serious illness, we are often deluged by the demands that are suddenly thrust upon us. It doesn’t matter that friends and family are rallying round. We need something that is beyond the human capacity to give. We sense the lack. We utter prayers in utter isolation. Where is hope… where is true help and healing?
I remember a night in the hospital when my husband was still quite ill after his diagnosis of multiple myeloma. We were wrestling with God about how He could inflict such sorrow on us -yet again. Our only daughter had died of a rare childhood cancer when she was seven years old. My husband, son and I had lived with the desolation for many years, for no one ever gets over the death of a child or a sibli
ng.
This night we were devastatingly alone. I had called two agencies putting in a request. But evidently the nurse that they called did not receive the message in time, and she entered the room quietly. She wore a colorful knit hat on her head and the sweetest smile that we had ever seen. She seemed totally intent on what she had come to do, which wasn’t to provide a traditional nursing service. Oh, no!
We explained to her that she wasn’t needed, as the nurse from the other agency was on the way. But the three of us all knew better. This was far beyond human scheduling. Bessie, as her name turned out to be, told us her story. She said that she had come all the way across town… she might as well stay and visit for a bit. She is a nurse, but she is also a believer. She said she tried to tell her story to one person a day—her story of a living God. Bob and I held hands as I stood by his bed. His arm was full of gizmos and contraptions. We both wept like children and were comforted by her words. She read from the Bible and loved us in a heartfelt way.
Peace pervaded that room. It was a cloak of comfort that she offered. Sitting down in the old cracked Naugahyde chair, she read passages from the Bible and warned us against fear getting a foothold. Three against the flood of fear… two of us fearing that the waters would overwhelm us. Bessie Owens left her business card along with her healing presence when she gathered up her pocketbook and her prayers. She didn’t fool me for a minute. When she left I knew that the Great Physician had been making His rounds.
Love Between the Lines
I love my first book, Life With A Hole In It. This morning I drank a cup of tea and reread it for the umpteenth time. It speaks to me of love between the lines, between health and sickness, between tears and laughter. I lived much of it between the cracks, feeling stuff that was indecipherable in words.
My tall, strong husband became my child towards the end of his illness. I, who had been a Southern belle of sorts, now became a preview of coming attractions, a steel magnolia in the making. I, who had been a diligent spiritual student, now became the path itself. No choice in any of this, I might add. It was a grueling, choiceless experience.
These days I am enjoying “having written.” Deep within my soul I am sprouting hope and joy, something I went without in those other days, like a camel in the desert. These seeds will bear fruit in time. All I have to do is let the light shine. And between the rows of hope and joy, I wander down the page. I turn them one at a time, savoring the connection I have now made with readers. They know me like the back of their hand, because my story is theirs as well. It was an arduous journey, one made in heartache and futility. Letting go was not an option; it was written in the stars. Now they wink again with light.
After I wrote Life With A Hole In It, I didn’t know what would happen as a result of publishing it. But it has been accepted and even embraced. For me, that is a miracle, since I revealed myself warts and all. Now there is seemingly nothing left to say.
Let me explain what I mean by that. At the end of that book, there is an essay in which I express my grief and its accompanying feelings of How could a loving God do this to me? And then a silence falls upon the page. The reader understands that the story has been told. Now what?
Now what? is everyone’s question who has ever put their feet on the upward way. That question is a book in itself. What do you do when there is nothing to do but accept the way things are? A good koan to ponder. I hope the ending of the book is one answer to that question. I have read it many times over. Each time I see something new in it. Being the author, that seems to be a dumb thing to say. That just tells me it is going to be around for a while. I worry about how to find its audience when it knows better than I do. Life is strange; mystery works better than fact sometimes.
My Place in the Inner World
I write about the hard stuff because it is so familiar to me. Once you have buried a child, your life changes forever. There is no return to the garden unless you choose to awaken right here and now. My daughter’s name was Laurie and she looked like an angel. Long brown hair and mischievous eyes. Screaming in terror when her number came up in the chemo room. Vomiting all night from it. Crying because she was always sick. Laughing as she told us riddles. She was my wakeup call.
She died before finishing the last bottle of root beer in her room at a children’s hospital. She smelled like pee and her beloved yellow blanket. She was seven years old plus five weeks. So she was buried in her birthday dress with the wrist corsage a kind person sent for her to wear in her casket. I made it through the first five years after her death. They were the hardest. Recovering from the loss of a child is slow. The only friend you have is… yourself, because no one else wants to be around you. You remind them of the charnel house—an old-fashioned word these days. I smelled of death.
Our whole family smelled of it. We breathed it in and out. We ate our meals and gamely took the first vacation where I burst into tears in some seafood restaurant before the entree arrived. At home, I yelled at my son and he retreated into his private emotional hell. Bob buried himself in work. And life went on because it must and should. But we were not thrilled.
And that was over thirty years ago. Why don’t I shut up already? Because long ago I remember reading an old-fashioned poem written by a man who had buried his young daughter. This is an age-old subject that brings people to their knees. While I was down there on mine, I decided to pray. It did little good but I kept my hand in at it. I also read libraries of self-help books. I found a teacher and gave myself over to inner work. I had found my place in the inner world at least.
An Invitation to Rest
One should rest when it is time to rest and act when it is time to act. True resting and putting to rest are attained through the disappearance of the ego, which leads to the harmony of one’s behavior with the laws of the universe. Resting in principle involves doing that which is right in every position in which one is placed.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
I heard from Peter, today. After a long absence due to continued illness, he writes—with that remarkable lucidity of his:
“The sky still sparkles and the cats still dance through the grasses. Deer come and nuzzle the roses. In everything there is a quiet vibrancy. I watch the birds in the trees—lovers at the kiss of the sky. What else is there?”
Peter says that there is nothing that you can do to obtain grace. It either happens or it doesn’t. That is believable coming from him. It is as if he is saying, Relax!
Peter is not physically well and doesn’t have a lot of energy, yet he has been there for me, a stranger, in a way that is unfathomable. Perhaps you can feel his energy, too. It is an energy that twinkles as he speaks of a beloved cat with whom he hangs out. It is also an energy that simply tells the truth—about living with pain, about sitting in the sun, about being one with what is. Perhaps this is a familiar philosophy to you—that resting in God, resting within, can do wonders to restore the soul. Most of us become too busy to bother with such simple strength. I invite you to rest with Peter and me.
Bigger than the Sky
Peter has an uncanny ability to bypass the mind. Anything he says is total. He allows emotions to come and go, passing across the sky of his being. A laugh, a tear—all the same to him.
Clearly more intelligent than many of us, Peter has been challenged by an illness that has left him with little energy. For those of us who have been privileged to communicate with him, this makes him even dearer. His self-deprecatory emails to me are priceless.
When I told him that, if I lived near him, I would come over to borrow a cup of enlightenment, he just said that he didn’t know anything about it, wasn’t interested in it and had none to give. Yeah, right.
Peter is so candid about the frailty of his body. Yet he follows these confessions of weakness with such empathy for the universe that you want to reach out and hug him. But he seems to be nowhere and everywhere.
Peter
calls himself a cat-juggler. When he speaks of sitting in the sun with his cat, he is speaking about all of us learning how to let go. I know little about the details of Peter’s life. They seem not to matter to him anymore.
I suspect that talking to Peter gives one a contact high. Just what is it that he has learned through suffering? How does he transmit such wisdom in so few words? I know what he is up to. He is involving me in the paradox of peace. Shame on him! He is showing me surrender. How dare he? He is chiding me for clinging to the body. I might have known. Peter is loving me by letting me go.
Losing Interest in your Story
I was talking with Peter recently about the fact that he had lost interest in his story. That is what makes him so lovable. The most he would say is that he woke up one day and his “me” was gone.
Those of us who still believe in our personal story —the biographical details that we cobble together to make the “me”—will continue to suffer emotionally. Joel Goldsmith healed by sitting down and turning away from the problems of his clients. So did many other healers. So I ask you, would you rather be lovable or would you rather cling to your personal story?
Peter exemplifies love, so loss of interest in the personal story can lead to deeper love. Alienation from the self often occurs precisely because we are too interested in our story. We have two choices. We can turn within and enter the silence or we can consciously turn toward life and its ongoing renewal.
My story lately has not been a pretty one, but then I am not alone in this. And there are many people who would clamor to tell me theirs. Yet if I turn away from it, lose interest in it, let the details of it atrophy, love will occupy the vacuum. Simple as that.
Peter always tells me about just sitting in the sunshine with his cat and letting her love him. There is no story going on, just this moment of pure peace. I defy you not to love a man like Peter.
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