I can’t believe its Friday again. Time goes ever so fast these days anyway; but this week it has been stretching and contracting, and I don’t quite know where (and when) I am. I don’t really know HOW I am either…
This time last week, I was receiving the news that my Dad, who was rushed into hospital 10 days again, was unlikely to live. His only chance was surgery that he was too weak to have. The medical team were gearing us, and him, toward palliative care. We rallied family to come and visit while they could; my dear friends holding me with unbelievable kindness and care…all acknowledging how much I was going through (including navigating the early stages of a house sale and purchase). “You look so calm” said my cousin. It would have been easy to retort “like a swan gliding and paddling furiously underneath”…but actually, I was calm.
I am hurrying home
I am waiting for news
I am reassuring my Mum
I am unsure
I am heartbroken
I am a part of a family
I am a daughter
I am a sister
I am Daddy’s little girl
I am loved
I am breaking open
I am letting go
I am exhausted
I am calm
I am gaining clarity
I am content
I am part of a bigger family
I am this world, it is me
I am sobbing too
I am letting go…more
I am present
I am supported
I am safe
I am at peace
Hang on…I am confused
I am not sure
I am not prepared for this
I am spinning again
I am scared
I am waiting for news
I am relieved
I am grateful
I am gobsmacked
I am totally exhausted
I am unable to find sleep
I am needing to readjust
I am no longer in the bubble
Life is a fucking miracle*
I am trying to re-enter life
I am punch drunk
I am stunned
I am aching for normalcy
I am changed
I am full
I am still heartbroken
I am present
I am not looking too far ahead
I am folding ALL of this in
I am STILL folding all of this in
….and what the Vajrayana teachings show me is that the I am is my true nature: the ocean that holds the waves of all the nouns and adjectives.
As someone who identifies with enneagram Type Six process, I know myself to be better in crisis than waiting for the crisis to happen. This was evident in the pandemic, and it has been repeated with this situation. The hardest thing for a Six is to wait in the wings; to wait for the worst case scenario (because it WILL come, really). We wait under the axe with dread, and as we see it fall we say “there, told you”. I am so vigilant for danger and threat, I am the one best prepared to dodge the axe (well, that’s what I tell myself!).
In this scenario, there was no dodging. Dad was dying. This was the moment the Little Helen had been preparing for all her life – her job, to keep everyone safe. I was being told this was impossible…and I HAD to let my heartbreak.
Sixes don’t believe we have the resources to cope; this situation has righted that wrong view. My work, my practice have prepared me to face this situation in a different way – I had to open and feel the very pain I thought would destroy me.
I am delighted that my Dad was offered the impossible op and he took the “1 or 2% chance of surviving” that the surgeon gave. And yet, it threw me out of the tornado, and I hit the ground heavily. I now have to go through this again…hopefully not for a while, but as one Buddhist friend once told me “we don’t get out of here alive”. This time though, I know I am resourced; I know I am loved: I know I am held by friends, family, this world.
Its funny, in the past week I have listened to more podcasts about the future of our world. I have always cared about nature, the state of our planet, the climate crisis…and yet in this heart breaking open and DEEP experiences of non-separation, I feel more passionate to do more; to engage more.
“Inside and outside are inseparable. The world is wholly inside and I am wholly outside myself” Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote in Phenomenology of Perception.
When we heard the news that Dad was through the op and “just” needed to recover, I needed to consider what to do about work. I wanted some normalcy, I decided to return. My supervisees were incredible – its as if in my cracking open, we entered a new space. I felt similar with the few clients I was able to see, too. It was also a delight to connect with trainees as I returned to the university. I have felt so held by my work: the relationships within, how it orientates my world view.
Practice wise I feel a little out of kilter. Less time on the cushion; but more time practicing in the everyday. To be able to flip awareness around from the experiences (the waves) to the experiencer (the ocean) has been a god send, if allowing a little Buddhist irony to leak there 🙂
I titled this post the two sides of awe because its only been through touching the aw-full that I have seen the awe-some, and for that I am truly grateful. A sneak preview of the fruition that comes through the task of transmutation: for the Six, from cowardice to courage.
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* Reference to the James track that my brother pinged to me as he walked along the seafront in Eastbourne digesting all that needed folding in