Intention

Three years ago, I reached a point in my life where I was ready to check out. There were certain things inside myself that I kept coming up against, and despite years of therapy and spiritual exercises, I still did not understand what they were, why they were there, or how to move past them.

In August of 2003, all I knew was that I had travelled as far down that road as I was willing to go. If there is such a thing as a "dark night of the soul", with the hour being the darkest before the dawn, that was 4:30 AM for me. I was in despair because I had no empirical foundation for believing that things could be different for me. And my genetic biochemical inheritance predisposed me not to be able to find my way out, or to even think that there was a way out.

There was a part of me somewhere that would not let me take that final step, however, and that allowed me ... or pushed me ... to make one last attempt at life, despite all of my internal arguing to the contrary. I issued myself an ultimatum or a declaration: "if I stay here, things are going to have to be different. I have to find another way of doing this." So every time since then when I've found myself backtracking or being seduced into getting down into my "stuff", I remind myself of that. There is no compromise possible with it. It has been the ground of my being here on earth, through everything that has happened in the last three years.

What I did at that time was commit to being in this body at this time. It was also a deeper commitment to being itself. What my internal nemesis -- the stumbling blocks that I kept coming up against -- had to do with was my agreement to be in life, period. To be a human being, as well as a spiritual being, in an imperfect, finite human body and an imperfect human personality, fully engaged with other imperfect human beings in a world that is often brutal in its imperfection. And not to look away, not to give up, not to run away. No matter what. Because I can't run away from myself.

Back in New Orleans, they have an word, "lagniappe", that means an unexpected gift. I feel that my life after August, 2003, is all lagniappe for me. Every time I leave my house here in Portland and look around me, I am simply in awe of where I am and what I have done. Am I finished with it? Not by a long shot. That's life. What I have done is create a space for myself to grow into new ways of relating and contributing and creating.

My intention in moving to Portland, as it is in everything I do now, was to surround myself with people and circumstances that support me in doing that. This is not something that I can intellectually figure out or plan in advance. It happens step by step, as a dynamic, organic process. I could die tomorrow, or I could live for another 40 years. (That's the good part of my genetic inheritance.) While I'm here, my job is to be as present as I can be in each moment, to myself, to other people, and to the requirements of my path.

"But it isn't Easy," said Pooh to himself, as he looked at what had once been Owl's House. "Because Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you."

-- A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

Namaste

January 2011