There will be days like this

Written Friday morning, March 28th

I do not know why I am writing this post. Neither do I know where it belongs. Is it personal development? Is it acceptance, and love? Is it anger or grief? Perhaps all of the above, and perhaps none of the above. It may just slide under the archive label of ‘freedom’ that never gets read. I do not even know how this post will develop, or what it will bring.

I know better. I know better than to engage in discussions that lead nowhere. I forget. I forget to adorn my straight jacket. I forget my limits, and if I could just learn already to duct tape my mouth, life would be so much easier. If I could just remember. If I could finally understand that when I question existing beliefs and attitudes, I become disliked and avoided. If I could just understand and remember that when questioning systems and common practices, I am deemed anti-American, anti-this, and anti-that. Not to mention pro-this-and-that, proclaimed with voices of disapproval. If I could just remember, and finally get it through my thick skull.

It is not from any wish for a fairytale world or unrealistic idealism that drops well up in my eyes as I punch this keyboard, of which I can barely see at this very minute. It is not in any fancy belief that everything should be perfect.

My spouse never knows what he comes home to each day. As he walks through the front door and shouts his greeting, he sometimes risks meeting teary-eyes, although not often. Watery eyes replacing what once was anger about the very same subjects. The tears are not for myself. I know the nooks and crannies of my own grief, and the tears are of another kind. However, he is used to this reality. I convince myself that there is at least human life in our home. He knows that there will be days like this. He has a similar heart.

He lived the same reality during my career as a Nurse. All of the tears that fell. Professional in my duties, yet allowing the gates to open at home, temporarily managing to breathe for a few hours. Ah, but do not take work home with you, they say. It was not humanly possible.

Elderly hands cradled in mine through their final minutes of life, teaches such deep respect for each human. It teaches the delicate fragility of life, and that each has contributed to this world in some way, or another. Sitting in silence stroking masculine hands calloused by years of strife and struggle, opens the heart to empathy. Gently sweeping a washcloth over tiny female hands that have held many a handiwork, tired from a long life of nurturing. Massaging weary feet cold from poor circulation and age, awestruck at the realization of how many miles each pair of feet has walked.

Patient after patient. Day after day. Year after year. How can one not feel in such a human experience? Rich people, poor people, ladies of high society, mayors, businessmen, the homeless, the addicted. All hiding the skeletons of secrets in their personal closets, and none of them saints.

Do not feel this awesomeness of life? How can one not? Turn it off? Impossible.

John Lash knew that there would be days like this. Oh, he never said it in so many words to me, but he knew. One of the remaining true Tai Chi Masters of the world, living ‘over the pond’. A teacher of Tai Chi life philosophy long before mysticism became attached to it. No, not the sport that Westerners have changed to meet cultural purposes. A philosophy encompassing all existence, and the path of living this life. No, I do not practice Tai Chi. I have not attended any such school That is not what it is about. Right before I took my trip up North to my Karuna training, he wrote to me reminding me of the necessity to “wear rough clothing, and carry a jewel in my heart”.

At my Karuna training I was forewarned that there would be days like this. Cultivating the awareness of ‘compassionate action’, and the path of walking this talk is the Karuna trademark. After returning home a book arrived at my doorstep. It was John Lash’s most recent work. He was so excited that I was sent a copy long before publishing. I found it peculiar at the time that the word Karuna was repeatedly used in this work, however I now recognize that his written voice was meant to be of comfort. He knew that there would be days like this. A similar forewarning coming from mentors in all areas of my professional training.

Lash has called me a ‘Tai Chi person’. Patients have also sent choice names my way throughout the years. Understanding that the words came from their situations and frustrations, it was easy to stand there, and ‘take it’. They had to get it out, and they often met me with smiles the very next day. I have been called many things. In my studies, I have met interesting people, and speaking the language of their art or ’school’, they use terms that have not always been easily understood by me. I have been called a ’self-existing wind’ in the jungles of Mexico. I have been called an ‘emotional healer’ by a former mentor overseas.

I have also been implied a traitor by my own countrymen. ‘Unpatriotic’ is the word. This has probably been the most hurtful. In these situations I bite back a burning urge to ask the question of who has done the defining and dares entitle themselves so highly as to label me, when I wish no labels?

I seek the larger picture and greater wisdom, and along that path certain truths have revealed themselves. To explore wisdom demands questioning conventional beliefs, throwing the chains of conditioning, and examining everything from all angles, and all levels. It demands respecting all life, and all beating hearts, whether they be the philanthropist, or the thief. It means feeling from the core the strife of others, lest we forget and pass judgement. It means expansion of awareness, ready to accept answers that rub against the grain of one’s conditioning. It is by no means an easy quest, and emotions will sometimes resist at the forks in the road.

I have no fancy words, and eloquent sentences that can do justice to what I feel on days like this.

I walked outside for a few moments earlier this morning. Angry at myself for letting things get to me. Attempting to regain balance in my teeter-tottering. Almost instantly I caught an image floating through my mind. A parade of people. I stood on the sideline watching, in complete awareness that I at any time, could join the parade. Would it not be so much easier? I certainly know how to do it.

I just couldn’t. I let the parade pass me by. It has taken me so long to get to where I am, and the path ahead even longer than I have thus far travelled. How could I ever go back? I can’t.

I wandered back inside my office determined to begin the day anew, if only a mental possibility. I was met with a little story that contagiously created a smile, and a sigh of relief. I once read this passage somewhere, but I cannot remember where it comes from. Anyone wishing to know can contact the writer that provided that smile on my face. His name as we know it is Travis Morgan . I am not doing the passage justice by not providing proper citation.

It goes like this.

“A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, ” I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

Editing note, Monday March 31st:

Just yesterday a post caught my eye in my feed. Travis Morgan has created a most incredible piece about a part of history which he deems, ‘”One of man’s biggest failures in judgement ever” (ref. Travis Morgan). He created a signature inkblot design to accompany his soundscape composition entitled;
Hiroshima 08:15 August 6 1945

I am not asking nicely. I am begging you all to take a couple of minutes to see and hear this work of expression.

Opening image; http://www.sanantonio.gov/
Image of John Lash; ©John Lash