Chapter 63. Vast plain

In order to tap the uniquely creative in ourselves, 

it is important to honor the four ways of 

deep listening:

intuition, perception, insight, and vision...

-          Angeles Amen, The Soul of Creativity

Some modes of communication penetrate more readily than words: music, poetry, symbols/icons, images. Images that reveal my present perceptions lead me to deeper awareness.

The image/visions below, accompanied by their respective feelings or senses of being, provide a kind of spiritual timeline of my adult years:

 

  Hidden and safe, as in a cleft of the rock – late 1970s

  Exhausted yet still trying hard while sinking/ stroking/ fiercely grasping for a raft, “drowning,” – 1980s

  Toppled and confused, as if the rug is taken out from under me – mid 1990s

  Raw and bleeding, with knife pushed in and twisted through my heart – late 1990s

  Companioned, as on a plateau dancing with Jesus – early 2000s

  Radiant, as if shining like the sun/Son – mid 2000s

  Questioning, as on quaking ground – late 2000s

  Falling, as from a height or down a slippery sandy hill, but still safe – late 2000s

  Moorless, as in a boat unanchored – early 2010s

  Lonely but aware of possibility, standing in the middle of an extensive flat green valley, seeing mountains on the edges in all directions – mid 2010s

A poem Rainer Maria Rilke has a few lines that especially catch my attention in late 2016. These lines speak to this flat green valley in which I’m presently abiding:

”Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.”

Here’s the poem in its entirety --

Onto a Vast Plain
You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.

The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees' blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit:
now it becomes a riddle again
and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you know
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

Presently, though feeling rather alone in a great expanse – this uncertainty in everyday, an unknowing – I am also aware of possibility. 

There is beauty and creativity, within and without, to be discovered. There are trails to explore, heights to climb, horizons to gaze upon, connections to the earth and to what is. 

Acceptance of change, as all things living do change; and acceptance of death, as all things living die.

“When you sit quietly and for extended times in nature, you see that everything changes. 

If you stay longer, you see that everything dies or erodes. 

Nothing stays in the same shape or form for long. 

Plants and animals seem to accept this dying. 

Nature fights for life but does not resist dying.” 

– Richard Rohr

I still resist death of ego. When at a friend’s daughter’s wedding in mid-August 2016 – barely three weeks post my unexpected appendectomy and just a week after Mom’s funeral – even though I felt unwell and sad and quite desperate to go home early in the evening, I stayed to the end because -- we said we would. We were to help clean up at the end of the reception and dance. I could not allow myself to be less than trustworthy and responsible.

“Responsible” has been largely what has defined me: at least according to me. I couldn’t give in to the invitation in that moment to be other than my egoic “superwoman” persona. 

But I think I want to actually give it a try in the days ahead: to step into what is more modest, to live into my human limitations, to ripen until I am real.

Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

What does anyone feel when they reach for me?

I think of the days during 1987 in Storm Lake when I took care of my sister Kathy’s baby Katelyn along with my four little ones, and finances and Gregg’s job situation were disappointing at best to nearly desperate at worst. Kathy would come to our blue two-story 2^nd Street house over her lunch hour to nurse her firstborn, and we’d talk. She experienced me at yet-unseen depressive lows (I said to Gregg in November of that year, “I’m drowning!” and intensely felt under water); in that vulnerable time she found me to be more approachable than ever before. 

I could be “felt” upon her reach, during those painful modest days of ripening until real.

What does being “real” look like for me? I sense it involves feeling my feelings. 

Letting them all wash over me: 

   not wallowing in the “negative” ones, 

   allowing myself to experience (and not feel guilty about) the “positive” ones. 

This enneathought comes as I’m wrapping up this story in February 2017 -

The Direction of Growth for Ones is Seven. 

Ones tend to exercise too much control over their feelings and impulses. The essence of the move to Seven is that healthy Ones relax and learn to take delight in life. 

How can you delight in life today? (Personality Types, 404)

Being real involves delighting in life?

Possibly I’m letting life ripen me; I know I’m wishing for considerably more soft and juicy within.