A
Conversation on Soul-Making
My friend
Jean Raffa’s writing has been inspiring me for a couple years now—ever since I
discovered her work on her blog, Matrignosis.
The other day she wrote a post, “Soul-Making Half Way In Between,” and
this story popped out as a response/reply.
I am grateful to Jeanie for her kind and wise encouragement and
permission to leave such long comments on her blog. Anyway, here’s a story I posted as a comment
for her piece. I thought you might like it. It’s a transcription of a conversation I overheard between a kindly old man and the Divine Child as I sat up in the Tree of Life daydreaming. Let me know what you think, let’s keep the conversation going.
The Journey
Along a
shadow-dappled path on a late summer evening, a child and an old man walk
discussing many topics of great interest: their favorite painters and poets,
the art of brewing tea, water divining, and the ever self-revealing topic of soul-making.
“There is no
finish line on that journey,” said the child to the old man.
“Is that why
we make everything into a race?” asked the old man, “It would seem we like
finish lines.”
“I suppose,”
laughed the child, “we all like to imagine and to feel a sense of completion.”
“So it’s OK
to want conclusions?”
“Of course,
provided you remember that conclusions are just doorways to new beginnings.”
“So nothing
ends?”
“Oh things
end,” said the child, “just not in the way we’re taught to understand endings. In the movies they flash a big, ‘The End,’ so
we know to get up and leave–in case we didn’t know. Everything gets tied up nicely. In reality, however, when something ends, when
Enlightenment dawns, when a soul awakens, it often happens after, or during, a
not-so tidy experience. Sometimes it’s a
little messy, rough around the edges, torn, broken, wrinkled, worn out. But if one looks at our brothers and sisters
of the cicada variety and the caterpillar variety, and the hatchling and the
tadpole variety; the autumn leaves, late, late evenings like this one, we would
see that endings are really wildly transformative and colorful beginnings.”
“I’m not
sure I want wildly transformative beginnings.”
“You’re not
alone,” said the child, “I am guessing when the cicada nymph’s back splits and
its wings spill out that it feels both painful and relieved, much like the scratching
of a deep itch. I wonder how it feels to
be the caterpillar spinning its own shroud in rhythmic pulsations, and then
dissolving into an alchemical substance that will eventually take the shape of
a butterfly. Really, think of that a
moment—caterpillars dissolve in their
cocoons. They liquefy. What must that be like?”
“A bit like
losing oneself in grief, perhaps,” offered the old man.
“Losing
oneself into anything you love,” said the child, “Tears and heart-softening
embraces happen when we’re happy or sad.
My point is it’s probably a difficult transition—from fully-bellied,
exhausted caterpillar to churning, golden liquid; to deep dreaming; to powdery
winged enlightenment.”
“Did you
know that the word ‘chrysalis’ comes from the Greek, ‘khrysos,’ meaning gold?”
“I did know
that,” said the child, “thank you for reminding me. The whole enlightenment process, even the
difficult parts where we seeming lose ourselves—is golden.”
“Maybe we
like finish lines because we get to rest, or because we imagine the pain and
hard work will be over?”
“Something
like that,” said the child, “if we actually learn to settle into periods of
rest and inactivity, so-called ‘endings’ wouldn’t come as undesirable surprises. After all, the tide comes in and the tide recedes. The morning dawns and the night awakens. The body slips into the harbor of sleep and
rises with the songbirds to work the fields.
Endings are the shadows of beginnings. Enlightenment is the sister of
darkness.”
“It would
seem a healthy practice then to enjoy the journey,” said the old man.
“Yes!”
shouted the child happily, “That’s the key.
Allow yourself to be blessed by the very path itself, and by the walking
and the movement, the rest times, and the dancing. Allow yourself to revel in the ability to
move and to learn, to be able to stumble and rise again. This gratitude opens all doors at the so-called
end of the road. And when one steps
through the gates they find themselves in a mansion that is really a universe; that
is really one world within another, one body of light giving way to other
bodies of light; there are rooms within rooms in the mansion of heaven, souls
within souls, embraces within embraces.
The valleys rise and the mountains bow.
Beds are carried on currents of dreams, and dreams spill over into
kitchens and living rooms, classrooms and churches. New myths are told and stories bloom in the
minds and hearts of children. Gardens break forth into gardens, caresses drip
into caresses, desires are fulfilled only to give birth to children named,
“Gratitude,” “Prosperity,” “Success.”
And then these go out into the world to play only to discover entirely
new cities and open new gates, enter new heavens, explore new forests. Yes, enjoy the journey,” said the child, “and
know that enjoying the journey means sometimes you will stumble, fall, want to
give up. That’s all a part of it. We do grow tired and weary sometimes. Enlightenment doesn’t necessarily mean
boundless energy; it just means there’s clearer light to see where to go next.”
“What do we
do when we grow tired and weary?” asked the old man.
“Rest,” said
the child, “Pause. Breathe. Allow yourself to dissolve into doing
nothing, stop where you are on the dance floor and rest your head against the
shoulder of your partner. Let them glide
you along.”
“So part of
the journey is resting.”
“Yes. And part of the journey is learning to live
with incompleteness and imperfections.
Think of the tadpole when it’s close to becoming a frog. It still has a tail. And it probably doesn’t try to hide it like
we might. But it belongs to two
worlds—the fish and the frog. It has a
sort of identity crisis, only it probably isn’t a crisis because it simply
accepts this temporary tail as part of the plan. We’d probably feel embarrassed at not quite
being fully frog; we would think we’re not enlightened until we lost our tail.”
“You’re
saying the journey is imperfect?”
“No, the
journey is perfect. It’s just that we
walk it imperfectly, which in the grand scheme of things, is perfect anyway,
just as the clouds look all jumbled and yet somehow manage to look beautiful as
they travel across the sky. We are enlightened here and now, it’s just that we
think too much about what that means and the experience gets lost in ideas and
expectations.”
“Let me try
and sum this up,” said the old man.
“OK,”
laughed the child.
“There is no
finish line to the journey of life, to enlightenment. There are pauses, deep breaths,
transformations, rest stops, but no actual endings. Endings are beginnings with different
names. They’re twins. Also, we cannot travel the road
perfectly. We will stumble sometimes or
get caught with our tails still showing.
But in the end…”
“That’s a
pun,” interrupted the child.
“Oh dear,”
laughed the old man, “So it is. In the
end, or at the end of the day, whatever we call it, the night comes, our own
cosmic cocoon descends, and we dissolve into sleep and dreams only to wake up
the next morning, born again, refreshed, renewed, transformed, and ready for
more.”
“Sounds good
to me,” said the child, “and there’s one more thing about the journey that is
perhaps the most important thing of all.”
“What’s
that?”
And as the
old man waits for an answer, the child slips his hand into his.
“We go
together,” said the child, “the journey is shared. It belongs to us all. We can only walk alone so far. We all need to be carried sometimes and we
all need to carry others. And when we
reach those views, those heavenly plateaus, they are heavenly precisely because
we are sharing them with others. Heaven
is heaven because it is the coming together of people and loves, desires and
dreams—all spilling into one ocean, one song, one dazzling and exquisite
embrace.”
“I like
that,” said the old man, “thank you for going with me.”
And as they
continued walking deep into the night, the moon untangled herself from the
trees and drifted easily into view. The
sun tucked his face gently into the bosom of the night, and the child turned to
the old man and smiled. It was the smile
of the future and of endless beginnings.
Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog