Born and reborn again

I think my co-workers are thinking I'm either very tired or are baffled by my silence since I have returned from Ireland. The truth is....I'm settling into this quiet space where all is well and there is really nothing to say most of the time. I have been deeply affected by this magic land. I'm still not sure exactly how, but I am changed. As we journeyed through the country for 10 days, I felt like I was gathering to myself little unknown missing pieces and stuffing them in my pockets along with the stones and wool. It's honestly hard to describe. The words are yet to come. As we gathered at the sacred sites as a group we often ended with a Hebrew song "Return Again", and at this point it probably most accurately describes what was happening. The words are:

"Return Again, Return Again, return to the land of my soul
Return to who I am, return to what I am, return to where I am,
Born and reborn again"

One of my favorite areas were the Burren and Conamara on the Western coast with it's grassy valleys and limestone cliffs. It is also the home of the late John O'Donahue, an Irish Poet and philosopher. I had planned on reading some of his works before the trip, but got side-tracked, but as we drove through his home town and as the land fed and nourished me and we drove past his grave, I found my curiousity growing for this man and perhaps how this land would shape a poet and what he would birth from that beauty. I have dove deeply into his words since returning and I am at a loss for words at the wisdom and depth of this man and so saddened that he has left this realm just last January unexpectedly at age 52. It will be a loss for us, but what he left us is a great gift. If you are interested in hearing his voice, I would suggest doing a google search for the OPB radio show "Speaking of Faith" and when you get to the site, search for her interview with him under "John O'Donahue". His web site is :

www.jodonohue.com

I share with you some of his words that describe what I have experienced in my own life in the last 5 years. This is from his reflections.

"When your soul awakens,you begin to truly inherit your life. YOu leave the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetative talk and weary voices and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are called to become. The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control. The normal way never leads home.

Once you start to awaken, no one can ever claim you again for old patterns. Now you realize how precious your time here is. You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. You see through the roster of expectation which promises safety and the confirmation of outer identity. Now you are impatient for growth, willing to put yourself in the way of change. You want your work to become an expression of your gift. You want your relationship to voyage beyond the pallid frontiers to where the danger of transformation dwells. You want your God to be wild and to call you to where your destiny awaits. When you begin to sense that your imagination is the place where you are most divine, you feel called to clean out of your mind all the worn and shabby furniture of thought. When your inner senses are blurred, you can see nothing in or of yourself; you become a respectable prisoner of received images. On this journey, you begin to see how the sides of your heart that seemed awkward, contradictory and uneven are the places where your treasure lies hidden. You begin to become truer to yourself. The journey shows you that from this inner dedication you can reconstruct your own values and action. You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others. You are no longer caught in the false game of judgment , comparison and assumption. More naked now than ever , you begin to feel truly alive. You begin to trust the music of your own soul; you have inherited treasure that no one will ever be able to take from you. At the deepest level, this adventure of growth is in fact a transfigurative conversation with your own death. And when the time comes for you to leave, the view from your death bed will show a life of growth that gladdens the heart and takes away all fear."

He calls spirituality "The Art of Homecoming". He says that one of the intentions of a spiritual life, or a life that is open to the soul is to try to come home to yourself.

Just having returned from travel, I especially appreciate his comment that "no matter where you travel, or how you travel or how exotic your gurus,or how exotic the geography that might be presented to you for potential travel, if you're not looking after the identity of the traveler, the tickets and the destinations make no difference whatsoever".

His theory is:
"You need to go nowhere as long as you are fully where you are".

Speechless........

is a word I seldom feel, perhaps to the dismay of others, but that is what I find myself.

What has transpired since posting 2 weeks ago is still sifting it's way through me. It's not a bad thing, really, as long as I can accept that in certain moments, in human terms, it feels that way because I am, after all, human.

While my intention was to pose an idea for consideration and give a personal example of it's relevance to my life, and share a small portion of a very personal walk, which in turn might present others with an opportunity to practice the concept, this one post has become 'the gift that keeps on giving', presenting me with several teachings that I have yet to truly understand.

The fall-out is still happening, it appears. Apparently, I have pushed some proverbial buttons....


And so, I get another chance to practice staying in the present moment, allowing the perfection and the love to emerge from within and around me. My heart and mind, on the other hand, are in a sort of wrestling match, which I refuse to actively participate in, other than for a few moments at a time until my spirit softly raises her index finger to her pursed lips and whispers, "Not useful". My heart is actually poised shyly in the corner, almost begging to leave the room, and only strikes back at my mind in self-defense. So truly, it is my mind that is the aggressor. He's got his boxing gloves on, ready to defend us all, trying to talk my heart into leaving and take this whole thing outside (of myself) and team up against what it thinks is a bigger opponent. I fundamentally disagree with both of their strategies.

Funny thing is....neither is going to win, alone or together. But that is only because my soul stands patiently at the door, softly raising her hand when either of them try to leave the room; ever reminding both of them of the truth....there is no enemy, except the one they imagine. It's all a grand illusion they've self-created to give them something to do while I sit back and be still and wait and stay present with all 'of us' so the teaching I am being presented with can come out from behind the curtain. The truth is in the room, it just hasn't made itself known. The heart and mind think it's outside and want to go slay the 'dragon' so they can feel safe again, perhaps even claim a victory, at least that is what they think. But my soul knows better. There is no enemy. Nothing to defend. Nothing to fix.


You may have heard the story of the old woman who lost her precious ring, with so much sentimental value, and so she calls up all her friends and family to help her search outside, as she has been doing. They scour the yard, digging up both the front and back, plants and all. When it doesn't turn up they search the neighborhood, as they look suspiciously at the neighbors, wondering if perhaps it's been found, but not returned. After exhausting themselves, someone asks her where she had it last, to which she replies, "Oh, I took it off in the kitchen last night before doing the dishes". Surprised and confused her friend asks her, "Then why are we looking outside?" Her reply......"Because it's dark in there and hard to see and there is so much more daylight out here."

So, rather than leave the confines of my own heart and mind, looking for the truth where it never was in the first place. Rather than looking to pin the experience and emotions on what my mind and heart try to tell me are the supposed perpetrators, I will sit and wait until I feel like finding my flashlight and then look where I saw it last, for what sometimes feels lost, but never really was. It's still here...inside. And I'll find it soon enough. Maybe dusty, maybe tarnished, maybe bent, or missing a stone. Nevertheless, still present.

Sometimes, when something transpires that is either emotional or confusing my body feels like an old-fashioned hourglass, and I just have to sit, and wait for all the sand to get to the bottom, and then, there I am.....at the bottom line, the teaching, the wisdom.