Driving through traffic at 70 mph, vision blurred with tears and body wracked with sobs, is a procedure generally to be avoided. This morning, however, this was my reality.
It began with morning reading, in "...Wolves." The author was speaking of the tear the man cries when his heart breaks open to new experience, when he realizes and faces the fact that he carries in him the wounds of all his life--all the rejections, all the disappointments, all the ways he has limited living and feeling, how he has himself inhibited his own love of life and of another--and that when this tear comes forth, the real, deep healing begins. It is the moment when the man realizes that he is his own healer, that he need not, should not, look outside himself for comfort, for a lover to sedate his pain; for his own soul is where God can work to help him bring forth healing, comfort, and the power that flows from engaging this most profound life force. Man cries for himself, and he cries for the other whom he loves: passion and compassion combine in this moment, and when in the context of a loving relationship, both are enriched and ennobled. The cleansing tears also help him recover a state of innocence, in which everything is possible. He "is unafraid to say his soul desires. He is unafraid to wish, for he believes his need will be met. It is a great relief to him to believe his soul will be fulfilled."
Sitting with the book in Starbucks, all this resonated with me. Thinking of recent days I could see the beginnings of this trust, this reliance that all is well, that God is at work in my life, that my deepest wishes and needs will be met. How interesting, I thought. And kept reading.
The author then says, "When a man gives his whole heart, he becomes an amazing force....He inspires new works within himself, but also in those near him....It is a profound occasion when you create something of value through your lover's belief in you, through his heartfelt feeling about your work, your project, your subject. It is an amazing phenomenon. And it is not necessarily limited to your lover; it can occur through anyone who gives his or her heart to you in a deep manner."
This also resonated within. I knew I had glimpsed this with Rebecca, whose art is so remarkable, and the mere contact with which filled my own heart with such delight. But it was not until I began driving through traffic that the deeper impact hit.
My thoughts turned of their own accord to Amelia. Viewed in this way, I understood that our last years together on this plane had indeed been blessed with this sort of profound, shared creativity. At first I thought of her getting her Master's degree, of how hard we had both worked, of how I was able to demonstrate to her my belief in her capacity to accomplish this great thing despite, sometimes, her own doubts; and how ecstatic we both were when finally she achieved it, how we reveled in the abiding satisfaction her accomplishment brought us both.
Then I realized that the manner of her living, and her dying, in those final years were her true masterwork; and it was a work in which we both shared. I remembered how she internalized the danger she faced, and the probability of her own death, with humor, humility, acquiescence, fortitude and caring for others; how she committed to life, here and in the worlds to come, and began to prepare with thoughtfulness, intention and unshakable purpose, to make the most of her soul's eternal life in whichever of the worlds it was destined to become manifest; and how she held body and soul together until the healing of her loved ones was well advanced. I thought again how blessed, how lucky I am to have been allowed the insight, the strength and the love to accompany her, to aid in the creation she fashioned. Of all the lessons this quintessential teacher fashioned, this was her greatest, her most magnificent, and it was a collaboration with me, with family and friends--all added the richness that was in them to the final result.
But there was more to come. As I drove, weeping hard now, I was taken back to a vision that arose in my soul last night, as I lay on the edge of sleep. This was an occurrence unlike any in my life and reminded me, then and again as I drove, that these months of suffering, confusion, love found, expressed and transformed, had emptied the soul, broken down the walls, and set me on a path new to my experience.
As I lay on my bed last night, there arose before my eyes a vision of the world, but from above. I could see a vast panorama of villages and towns, of trees in full leaf and adorned with blossoms, stretching into the distance. The afternoon sun turned the trees' many hues of green into so many different shades of gold, warm and liquid in the light. Spread across this green-gold carpet I could see an interlocking lattice-work of circles, suspended in the midst of the sky yet below my eyes; they were circles of celestial power, of purest energy, substantial and real yet transparent or nearly so, and I knew they were intended to shelter and invigorate the life force of all the beings on the earth below them. My gaze was then lifted higher and I saw, at the farthest edge of the horizon, the shoulders and deep black luxuriant beard of a Figure; He filled the sky, though I could not see His Face. His shoulders were clothed in a sumptuous, shimmering robe of the same colors as the trees below, yet finer, deeper; they repeated while yet embellishing the theme of the living art spread below. And as I watched I could see His hands, large, powerful, majestic, fashioning one more, one final circle of golden light: larger it was than the others, and as it emerged from His hands I knew it was the one circle that would fill the sky at its apex, uniting and protecting all the network of smaller circles and knitting everything, earth and heaven alike, into a single band of power.
Such images have, to my recollection, never come to me before. I am reminded by it that a new chapter has begun in which, if this is possible, then so are all things, in His good time. Now I wept, not only for the sorrow of loss, and of love postponed, but also for the beauty of life, of the new life I feel growing in my soul, and for the gratitude I feel to a loving Creator Who can so cherish even the most unworthy of His creations that He should give him such gifts.
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