It is a cold evening, but I am still keeping my windows open. Fall is blowing in more every day, and tonight I walked in crunchy fallen leaves for the first time this season. Today was filled with goodness. I joined some dear friends at the Maryland Renaissance Festival for a day of merriment and togetherness, and it was probably the best thing I could have done. After so much seriousness, so much sorrow, and so much intensity, it was a blessing to just be in the sunshine, to follow the flow of the day, the flow of conversation. To allow myself to be carried by the experience, without having any goals or particular demands on me. And the sunshine was warm and soothing, a balm on my whole being.
At one point today, Sarah and I were talking about death and the intensity of that. She had overheard others at the festival talking about next year when they would come back. And she offered her own thoughts about impermanence, that people count so much on "next year" or "next time" but the truth is that there are no guarantees. That all we have is right now. This touched deeply into my own feelings and what I have experienced in the last week. Indeed, I have no way of knowing when this body and mind will come to their end.
It is funny...in all the ceremonies I have done, I have faced the limits of body and mind, over and over. And I have been taken into the most incredible space of transcendence - within this space, I have been shown beyond any doubt that I am far, far more than my body and mind. I know that in the depth of me. But there is something in the struggle of eventually relinquishing the physical that really distresses me. In my first Ayahuasca ceremonies, I knew that I would be asked to face things that were really intense and scary and difficult, and I had all the courage in the world to go into that. But there was deep fear about the physical suffering - the purging, the strangeness in my body. And I can see how this is connected to the distress I feel about dying to the body, too. While I know that I am far more than flesh and bones and monkey mind, these are the things that I experience life through. I am a being that experiences livingness through sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, and intuitive perception. I have a body that offers me these sensory perceptions. These things are the way I relate to myself and to others. So much of my life is involved in caring for this body and mind, too. Eating, sleeping, bathing, moving, reading...it goes on and on...
And even as I write here, I have some deep sense of how small these things are in relation to the great big Divineness of the universe. Am I so attached to the little things, such as drinking tea and brushing my teeth, and taking a shower, and cooking, and shaving my legs? The part of me that likes to be deep and philosophical says, "no, of course not..." but the part of me that is more honest says, "yes, actually. This is all we know..." And in some way that is the truth of if. But I have experienced the greater reality! I know that place too! I suppose what I am realizing right now is that these two ways of knowing and living are not integrated yet. Can I hold the transcendent within my body during the mundane activities? And can I bring the truth of my mundane needs into my life within the Divine? This is something worth sitting with, for sure.
One more piece of it is this - for all the years that I have not felt grounded or had much desire to think about my body at all, in this moment I am really feeling what a precious thing life is, body especially. This body is an amazing gift through which I can perceive and experience all the other ways that God has come into livingness upon this Earth. What an incredible gift indeed. And I am feeling a renewed desire to really care for my body in every way that I can. Eating nourishing things, walking, yoga, massage and acupuncture, and whatever else appears to be necessary to give it what it needs.
The mind is such a hungry vulture, though...wanting all the attention, all the care given to it. Feed me knowledge, feed me curiosities, feed me literature and science and history and and and and... On and on it goes, its hunger is insatiable. It bats away the body, saying, "yeah, yeah, later..." This is my experience, for sure. The body is merely a vehicle for the head to get its needs met. And what a lie! Actually, the body has its needs, and the mind has its needs, and the heart has its needs, and the spirit has its needs. And all must be met each day in order to live a life that is fulfilled and whole. I have fed my mind and spirit far more than my body and my heart for most of my life. And now that my heart is getting its due, my body is shyly stepping up and saying, "um, is it possible that I, too, might be cared for?" And the answer is yes, oh yes. Yes, oh yes.
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