Healing

Dad, boys and crow.

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“Once upon a time there were two boys who purposefully misremembered things about their father. It made them feel better if they ever forgot things about their mother.

There were a lot of equations and transactions in their small family. One boy dreamed he had murdered his mother. He checked it wasn’t true, then a put a valuable silver serving spoon that his father had inherited in the bin. It was missed. He felt better.

One boy lost the treasured lunchbox note from his mother saying ‘good luck’. He cried alone in his room, then threw a toy car at his father’s framed Coltrane poster. It smashed. He felt better. The father dutifully swept up all the glass and understood.

There were a lot of punishments and anticipations in their small family.“

Eight years ago it was hard work and I could remember it only vaguely.

I read it for the second time this morning. It felt brand new, easy, fun and hearbreaking. Part memoir, part sound-poem. A bit more than 100 pages long. No more than 18 thousand words. The ‘missing’ in the life of a young family after the mother dies suddenly is palpable. In the background rings the sound of a crow flapping its wings. One big black feather has dropped on the ground. It lies near my right foot.  

PS: Losing a parent or a close relative or friend at a young age puts the young at a high risk of suicide.

It is February.

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In January, fourteen blog-posts rolled on to the page, inspired, with sparkling newness, a fresh resolve. Then twenty days sneaked past, and nothing appeared. Wonder why? What is it we can trust?

The body?

One of the most fragile things around, it aches and creaks, often deceiving itself with imagined abilities and fantastical visions. It morphs every day in its special small way, without a clue what happens next. Can we depend on its trustworthiness?

The mind?

It doubts to the point of debilitation, endlessly compares un-comparables, guards its ideas like a dog, but softens and changes its opinions when presented another point of view. Every now and then it simply loses itself, out of the blue. What can we do?

The Universe?

Sounds great. But what does that relationship look like? Seems rather theoretical.

So, what is constant? What can we trust?

The thing that is not a thing and yet, can be called everything. The thing that is nowhere but can be thought of as everywhere. The thing that appears as me but is in fact invisible. The thing that is localised in each of us but is colourless, featureless, unbound. The thing that is beyond stillness and movement, beyond light and dark.

Awareness. The one that knows. Not as a person but as an intelligence. A presence. An eternity in this moment. Here. That always was, is, and always will be. That can be trusted, not to get things done, but to know. Know every experience of being in this body, having this mind, perceiving the world through these eyes. This is how it is.  That knowing. Beyond sounds and beyond silence.

My road. And mine alone.

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This is a village being a village. It has done me no wrong.

People are being people of all kinds and shapes and forms.

The mid-afternoon sun is being the sun, not an upstart.

Each one, a character in a story, playing its part.

Seeing them as villains and heros

is the naive mind assigning roles

To what is simply an Is-ness.

They are being them. They can’t be the other lot because they are not.

They have no will, no thought.

The stories that my mind makes up do. Yet, I hold them to be so so true.

I am learning they are not.

Gotta just walk.

I am the cause. I am the cause. I am the cause.

To know that the gaze of the Universe is me.

To be held within the fold of Here and Now of Divinity.

That’s all.

I wonder if that’s the journey.

To find me exactly where I started.

Completely new.

What is your Superpower?

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When I lived a cramped, hectic life in London, I often romanticed the texture of life in a scenic little seaside cottage with no neighbours in Cornwall or a tiny remote island a few miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest or a lonely dwelling on the side of a vast mountain in the Himalayas. Deep down lay an incipient desire to experience it.

A few years on, I make the choice to live in a one bed-room house in remote South India. Malnad, the region of rain, notorious for a long heavy monsoon. The nearest airport, five hours by road on a good day and the closest half-decent hospital an hour’s drive away. After a few months the newness of this rural setting starts to diminish. Mornings begin with chirps and trills emerging out of a serene silence. I draw the curtains to find the morning fog gently floating across layers of overlapping lush green slopes, reaching right up to the horizon. I am filled with gratitude. I say to myself, ‘Don’t ever take this for granted.’

If I start listing all the things that are not here, an exhaustive inventory might appear – a library, a café, a restaurant, a museum, an art gallery, a community centre, a swimming pool, a book shop and so on. But I do have a superpower. On whatever I put my attention, that seems to grow, fill my awareness. Music, chanting, yoga, reading, writing, meditation, nature – all the things that I used to struggle to make time for, are now in abundance.

I can choose where I want to place my attention because this is my one precious life, my one chance to live and learn and enjoy. I am exactly where I want to be and need to be. This is the perfect opportunity to match my inner silence with the one I sit within. To observe and let go. Examine and let go. Feel and let it go. Think and let it go. Breathe in and let go.

Contentment does not need objects to justify itself. In every moment, it is present as a choice. At the tiniest hint of my attention, it shows up, smiling. The more I sit with it, the more it makes itself available. When I touch, its texture is silky.

Caves are well-known conduits to enlightenment. May be this is mine. I wonder if contentment is another name for happiness.

Who’s the boss?

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Did you know there’s an organisation that brings science and spirituality together? Its mission is to create a kinder, heart-centered world where we care for one another and live harmoniously. It’s called the HeartMath Institute and offers many free resources.

They have found that the heart is not just a mechanical pump. It contains thousands of nerve cells. That is probably the reason our memories and trauma are stored in various parts of our body, mainly the brain and heart.

We were taught in school that the brain is a master-organ but it’s the heart that tells it what to do. The intelligence of creativity, innovation and intuition resides in the cells of the heart. Brain neurons are the antennae that follow the heart’s desires. For example, I want to speak and understand Spanish says the heart. The brain follows.

We humans have a stunning ability to self-regulate. Our biology is engineered as a soft technology. Our fundamental physiology is made up of ion-potentials across membranes. We’re the only form of life that can harmonise its two major neural organs through Heart-Brain Coherence. We can alter the chemistry in our bodies. Once this coherence occurs, we can heal and be healthy. The immune system is strengthened, longevity enzymes rise and stress is reduced at a molecular level. Three minutes of this shift can produce beneficial effects for 6 hours.

3 steps:

  1. Shift in focus – into the heart
  2. Shift in breath – slow it so the exhalation is longer than the inhalation
  3. Shift in feeling – a positive feeling – initiate Gratitude on demand.

We are powerful self-regulators. It is a God-like ability that we have, to heal ourselves. We’re conditioned to feel helpless and think we need external help. Sometimes we do need interventions, but we can honour the gift of this body to heal ourselves.