I am so deeply moved by the above image I have set it as my desktop background to meditate on. It is me. It is my life. Click on it to see it enlarged. It is incredibly powerful, and it is all of us as we face our lives…
This morning I realized that there has been a shift. I have been sitting here working, in solitude and an almost complete silence save the soft snoring of my sleeping pugs at my feet and the popping and crackling of my desktop fireplace app which brings me great comfort. All is meditation, prayer, reading, going deep into the well of my human existence, puzzling out what it is I am to do, why I am here, and how to move forward. I have been afraid of so many things, have really been suffering with the idea that I am not only alone but will likely be forever. This is an existential condition we face as humans. I have faced it, it will come up again and again, but I cannot, and will not, let it rule my life and days. I have work to do and I am here to do it. I have begun, once again.
Yesterday was a very hard day, and during the difficult hours I began re-reading one of May Sarton’s journals that I love dearly and which has so often brought me great comfort, At Seventy. In it she writes…
“In the middle of the night, things well up from the past that are not always cause for rejoicing–the unsolved, the painful encounters, the mistakes, the reasons for shame or woe. But all, good or bad, give me food for thought, food to grow on.”
I kept going back to that quote to examine what it had to teach me and this morning I understood what it was. There will be hard nights, there will be fear and anxiety, there will be all of these things that well up from the past as well as fears that I have about my present, and my future, but finally the task is to move through it all and find my way back to the present moment and do my work here. I am a writer and a teacher and I must do my work. I can feel all there is to feel of the pain, and yes, sometimes suffering, and fear, and heartache, of living alone, and then I must face that it is what it is and not get stuck there. There is a vast amount of truth to be found as a solitary person facing life, and in some ways these truths cannot be found, reached, touched if we live with other people who soften the cutting edge of our deep aloneness. At least for now this is my place in the world. I must face and feel it all, and my work is to tell the truth as I see it, to bear witness and to bring forth the wisdom that may be gleaned as an offering on the altar of life.
Living through the hurricane and it’s aftermath has been frightening, devastating in many ways, life-altering in ways both good and bad, there have been deep sorrows, and there have been gifts. One of the most powerful teachings of my life, which I am still processing to this day, is having lived through my house fire in 2014. The losses were so many, the life that I had carefully planned and constructed swept away in a few hours one terrible night, and everything that I had hoped and planned for my future gone, and then what was left? Then, as now, what was left is my relationship to life as a singular human being facing every single day with love and faith and hope and sorrow and joy and every other human emotion. It is with this knowledge that I move forward today. It is true for each and every one of us, and it is our decision how we will embrace this knowledge and do our holy work in the world, whether personally, one to one, or on a larger scale.
This knowledge is changing everything for me, it is helping me set right things that have been turned upside down and which have been askew. It has made me realize that I need to make no apologies for who I am, for what I have to offer, and it has made me, in this moment, unafraid to move forward with my work in the world. This is a tremendous gift. I have something very special to offer. It is time. You will read more in the days and weeks ahead.
When we come into alignment with our purpose something miraculous happens. We can be afraid and move forward anyway. We can be anxious and feel it and acknowledge it and go on. My daughter Rachel sent me something last night that I had seen before but which filled me with courage and the knowledge that I have survived and will keep on doing so. It was, “On particularly rough days I like to remind myself that my track record for getting through bad days so far is 100%, and that’s pretty good.” Truth. I’m proud of my track record. And if you are here reading this your track record is 100% too. Remember that. Now let’s go on from here, shall we? We are more powerful than we know, I am stepping forward, today, in this knowledge and fully in my power. I invite you to do the same.
