How willing are we to go deeply into the lived experience
of those we love, of those we care for, of those who reach out to us for help,
of those who irritate us and push up against that which is unresolved within,
of those who deeply disagree with us? Will we wade into the dark empty abyss with
a depressed friend, a grieving mother, an abandoned partner, an elderly man
filled with tears who is finished with life and calls out for his long-departed
wife as his only hope? It is so natural for us to want to help others,
especially when they are suffering, hurt, confused, or experiencing profound
sadness. Can we resist the temptation to fix them, to transform them, to heal
them, even, for just a moment? Can we walk with them into the raging fire that
is their embodied immediate experience, exactly as it has been given as an
offering to them? Somehow, by some wild, unknown grace, we enter into that
secret chamber inside the heart which holds us both. The intelligence and the
creativity there is overwhelming. We are in awe.
When we share in this illumined field with another – when
we remain simultaneously vulnerable and utterly grounded in the somatic-sensory
flow of grace that is present – we come to see that the other only wishes to
have their experience validated, to have it fully held by another, exactly as
it is, without the slightest movement to change, transform, or heal it. They
wish to finally be met, to be known so nakedly, so intimately, to be beheld as
an authentic, unique, sacred person in their own right, rather than someone who
is “depressed” or “anxious” or “fearful” or “lost in their ego”, who has fallen
apart, who is experiencing trauma, or who is insane. We can hold their hand and
go directly into the darkness with them, willing for our hearts to be shattered
and put back together. We can allow the other to matter so much we cry deeply
with them, we join them in their sadness, we get on their side, we do whatever
we can so when they look into our eyes they feel us fully with them. Perhaps
for the first time, they are actually seen by another human being, the way they
organize their experience is held, the way they make meaning of their life is
contacted and shared.
And somehow through this meeting, which is orchestrated
by that same intelligence that keeps the stars and the planets and the moon
from falling out of the sky, their experience is metabolized; we’re both left
with an unfathomable awe at the preciousness of this grace field that is this
human body, these human senses. For a moment, there is no time, no space, no
healing, no self, no other; we rest together and behold the healing particles
of love as they pour forth, interweaving between two hearts, touching us in the
most human way, unlocking the secrets of love which are buried in the cells and
DNA of this grace body. We know so clearly that it is not us who can offer the
power and grace of healing, of transformation, but it is that Great Other which
takes over this life when we are willing for everything to fall apart, to no
longer think that we can or need to hold it together. And then all that is left
is that awe, and we look up into the night sky and this one and only Milky Way
and are filled with gratitude, not really able to understand how lucky we are.
