 It comes most often just before I fall asleep. There on the edge of restful darkness, as the defences of a sharp and demanding mind crumble just a little around the edges, forbidden thoughts and unwanted feelings make a bid for consciousness.
It has come for years, not every night, but intermittently, when I close my eyes: an image on the back of my eyelids, unbidden and unwelcome, an image of my own wrists, slit and bleeding.
A persistent messenger
I know this isn't what you expect from someone who writes about the deepest longings of the heart and soul, someone who has asserted and believes that we are in our essential nature compassionate and capable of being fully present. It's not what you expect from someone whose life is filled with meaningful work she enjoys, intimate relationships she values, and a commitment to cultivating a daily connection to the Sacred Mystery that is larger than herself.
It's not what I expect. But there it is. Most often in the image, my hands are completely cut off.
When this image first came to me years ago I would pull away from it quickly, afraid of what it might mean. Although I was not consciously feeling suicidal, I was afraid that perhaps on some level I was being drawn to consider suicide without even knowing it. I have counselled adults struggling with the lifelong wounding brought about by a parent's suicide. I have two sons I love. I did not want to give any ground to the thoughts or feelings I feared might be behind this image. Suicide was not and never will be an option.
But still the image comes, frequently but irregularly, like some strange and persistent messenger who will not give up until the message has been received. I decide to pay attention to what is happening in my life and the world when the image appears. I discover that the image does not come more frequently when things in the world seem to be falling apart at an accelerated rate. The tragic events of September 11, the increased violence in the Middle East, stories of poverty and injustice within my own community all touch me deeply, but they do not alter how often or how vividly the image comes to me as I drift off to sleep. Neither does it seem to come with increased frequency when things in my own life are not going well. Sometimes the image appears when everything seems to be working out the way I want it to or think it should.
Listening to the message
After years of being unable to banish the image, I finally decide to listen to what it has to tell me, to allow and be with the feelings that come when I simply stay with it. And I am flooded with a level of exhaustion that forces me to lie down on the bedroom floor next to my meditation cushion. The woman with her hands a symbol of doing severed says to me silently but emphatically, I quit!'
I lie on the floor and consider the white plaster of the ceiling, allowing the feelings of failure to come. I stay with the knowledge of how frequently I am not fully present despite my intentions and my practice of meditation and prayer. I am frustrated at learning primarily by hindsight. During my contemplative meditation I can see clearly that I could have remained calm and compassionate when the woman from the insurance company informed me that my driving rating has been lowered and my premiums upped despite the fact that I did not make the claim or the police report that someone has apparently inserted into my file. But this insight was not available, did not guide me when I was speaking directly to her and she refused to correct the error. I am demoralized by how often I still find myself overtired from doing too much despite my efforts to increase my awareness of my own limitations by diligently doing my daily practice and conscientiously avoiding those things I know speed me up and make it harder to stay connected with myself and others caffeine, TV, junk food. Over and over I resolve to slow down. And I do. I reorganize, take on less, let go of things that do not need to be done.
But the eyes of the woman in the image my eyes mirror the sense of futility that is growing within me, question the reason for all this effort, point to a hopelessness I just barely outrun each day. Her weary face dares to ask the question why? Why do any of it? Why not simply forget about being awake? Why not just find a really good pharmaceutical product that will allow me to continue to function in the world and be a happy carrot? What's the point of all this effort, all this diligent trying that seems to fail more often than it succeeds in creating awareness?
What is the meaning?
The Call is a story of my quest to hear and heed the call at the centre of my life, the call to live the meaning the why at the centre of all of our lives. It is an invitation to you to turn your attention to the call at the centre of your life so that together we might begin to live consciously who and what we are and in so doing alleviate suffering in our lives and in the world and embody the deep happiness that is our birthright. The call is that consistent tug we feel at the centre of our lives to do more than just continue, to know and fulfil the meaning of our lives. The call is always there, whispering in the soft places of our bodies and hearts, in the longing that reminds us what we ache for at the deepest level.
A year ago a dear friend, celebrating the changes in my work life, the steady book sales and opportunities to speak to different groups, said, Oh, isn't it wonderful? It's what you always wanted, and it's all coming true!'
Later that night, at home in my bed, grateful for the opportunities that have come into my life but aware that these were never goals I consciously held or pursued, I see again the image of myself with severed hands, and I whisper into the darkness, All I ever wanted was God.
I am neither a priest nor a theologian, neither a devotee of nor a spokesperson for any particular spiritual tradition or path. I am an ordinary woman with an extraordinary hunger: to live with an awareness of the Sacred Mystery, the Beloved God at the centre of my life and to learn from this presence who I am and why I am here.
Speaking to me through what I long for, the call of that which is both within and larger than myself has guided me to an understanding of how I can live that longing not by trying to change myself, but by unfolding, by becoming who I already am at the deepest level of my being. But with this comprehension of what I must do, the call continues to come to me as an image of myself with tired eyes and severed hands questioning why I seek to embody this understanding when it is clear how infrequently my essential nature guides my actions, how often fear still shapes and sometimes determines what I do. It tells me that something is off, missing. But I have not given up. I am willing to do whatever it takes to know and live the meaning in my life. I am convinced that I have to and am able to learn to do it differently.
And I am wrong.
Not-doing
I thought that to heed the call, to know and embody the meaning of my life, I had to learn to do it differently. But what I had to learn, what I am still learning, was to stop doing altogether. I had to learn not-doing, something I had heard about years ago but dismissed as being at best an ideal beyond my humanness or at worst empty spiritual jargon. I remember the first time I heard a teacher, a Native American elder, tell a group of students that they had to learn the art of not-doing. I was a single mother with two small sons living on very little income, and I wondered just how not-doing would work when there are children to get up and dressed, breakfasts to prepare, lunches to pack, laundry to do, and a wage to be earned. I misunderstood. I assumed not-doing meant doing nothing staring at a wall or sleeping and there was precious little time for this in my life. Of course, even when we sit and stare at a wall or lie in bed sleeping we are usually doing something. We are thinking and feeling and sensing, if only in our dreams.
But not-doing does not depend on whether or not my body is moving or my mind is active. Not-doing is about letting any movement flow from an awareness of the deep and ever-present stillness that is what I am at the most essential level of being. It is here, in the awareness of my essential nature, that I find the meaning I seek in my life, not as an idea or an ideal but as an implicit knowing folded into my very being.
Remember, remember....
Some expect the call to come as a voice emanating from a flash of brilliant white light or in a vision surrounded by a golden glow. And sometimes it does. But sometimes it comes in a way that makes it hard to want to listen and harder yet to ignore. Sometimes it comes as an image of a woman I recognize standing alone, her shoulders rounded, her face etched with a tired sadness, her hands severed. But always it comes, this sacred life force calling to us, asking us to remember why we are here. We were programmed from the beginning to hear it, to feel the longing to go home to what we are, to quit trying to be other than we are, to learn how to stop our doing and surrender to simply being and so find the peace and the meaning embedded in our lives. It is the very nature of the stuff of which we are made, the impulse of the life force within us, to want to wake up and consciously embody that meaning.
It's what we are called to be. It's why we are here.
From The Call by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, copyright 2003 by Mountain Dreaming Productions, published by HarperCollins.
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