April 2010 -Practicing with a Pebble
Judith Sarah Schmidt PhD
STOPPED!
After a very rewarding week of CIL teaching in Zagreb, Croatia, and excited about returning home, I found out that my flight was cancelled. Along with thousands of others, I was stopped in my tracks by the volcanic eruptions in Iceland that spread its ash over most of Europe. Now, it is almost a week that I am here and still unable to leave the beautiful city of Zagreb.
Let me begin by saying that despite a very difficult time, I have been safe, have had a roof over my head and a pillow under it. I am very aware that this was not about a war, not about bombs, not about any of the horror of war that has happened here in Croatia and is happening at this moment in so many parts of our world. Being stranded here as a result of the reverberations of the volcano has not been terrifying. It has, however, been destabilizing in small enough and manageable ways to afford me opportunity to take it as a challenge that I can bring awareness to. In the scheme of things, you might say that I have been dealing with a pebble in my shoe. Sometimes, a pebble enters our life and we cannot get rid of by just taking off our shoe and tossing the disturbance away. Some pebbles challenge us to become present and aware. It is that process of awareness and presence that I wish to share with you.
LOVE MAPS
Time has opened here for me to practice what I teach at CIL, what I hold as central to healing and wholeness for body, mind and spirit, for our selves and for our world. This has been a time for me to practice the presence of the Witnessing Self, the one who sees and hears all that arises with a compassionate heart-mind. The neuroscientists tell us that this mind- heart sits in the middle of the pre frontal cortex, right behind the middle of the forehead, where the third eye is aligned over the heart space, to which it may bow, and over the solar plexus, from where the visceral brain offers messages from gut alarm and gut wisdom to be reflected upon.
This critical center behind the middle of the forehead reaches connections to all other parts of the brain, gracing us with the capacity to give pause to our reactive habitual trigger responses and to hold them in the vessel of mindful heart centered reflection. During the week of teaching here, I tried to convey how this practice of bringing the container of mind-heart to our automatic responses of what I call our ‘old love map’ is a very serious practice for both our psychological and spiritual growth. Serious because without such practice, we are captive to reactions that are not freely chosen with full consciousness and therefore leave us less than whole integrated caring people. Without being able to stop automatic behaviors and step into wider awareness, we find ourselves like leaves driven in the storms of our emotional reactions. The practice of presence becomes a space of refuge from the storm.
Our old love maps, those patterns formed in our earliest years, are written in our nervous systems. D.W.W Winnicott said of these patterns that they are ‘unremembered and unforgettable”, lived without word or thought or intention. Our old love maps are not only written on our nervous system. They also form an inner atmospheric landscape on which we locate our selves. For some this landscape of the psyche is verdant with the growth of life, rooted in security. For others, who have known the loss of safety through war or neglect or abuse, the inner landscape may be one of rubble or desert or dark cloud or abyss. Some of us live on a rich inner landscape and yet, because of early wounding, somewhere on the map there might be a black hole, a place we can fall into if the going gets too tough.
If an experience like the airlines shutting down ignites a love map on which someone has accumulated experiences of being lost, being left alone, not knowing when or if safety will return, that person may well be thrown back onto the map of the past. Boundaries between past and present time will blur. The person’s world will become very narrowed and flooded by anxiety over survival. In these ways, at times of even a small stressor, a pebble, the ‘unremembered and unforgettable’ may enter our house of awareness as a guest, calling out for the refuge of being named and known.
WITNESSING THE WAVES
Now, here I am in Zagreb where, during these days, there is much for me to witness and refelction upon while I spend long hours calling the airlines and walking to and from the airline offices, trying to get home. I hvae come to realize that in some sense I am on a spiritual retreat and my practice is a meditation in action, a witnessing of the many waves going through me: moving from the breath of agitation and emotional arousal, to the wave of coming back to bodily calm and mindful reflection. Back and forth and back and forth. Sometimes the waves are strong, tossing me about and at other times they are calm and buoy me up.
Here, far away from home and basically alone, there is a time now to watch the movement that comes in these waves:
“What! I cannot get home! When will I get home! Tomorrow? The next day?
Ever? Never! What will the volcanic ash do over Europe? Is this a natural disaster akin to the man made one in Chernobyl where ash will cause indelible harm to people in Europe? When will the next eruption come? Will Iceland disappear? Will I? Is this a punishment by Mother Earth for our violation of Her?”
I can feel the stress of cortisol race through my body, the increased pulse, the accelerated breathing. The racing of the urgent heart to do something, make anything happen. Fast! Now! Make something happen so as not to feel powerless, stranded forever, a stranger in a strange land. This old love map becomes urgent and, for me right now, carries the intergenerational legacy of the displacements of my generations, old history written on my nervous system.
I watch the exhaustion that sets in after the stress response. I watch how the parasympathetic nervous system might step in, to help shut down to protect from the too muchness of alarm and arousal. I notice how I am not anywhere in that emotional/physiological territory. I think of how, during the devastation of the Croatian war, many people did freeze and many are still frozen and how I must pass today some of these people on the springtime streets of Zagreb.
The poets say it best. Here is Emily Dickinson:
After Great Pain
After great pain, a formal feeling comes-
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs-
…….
The Feet, mechanical, go round-……
A Quartz contentment, like a stone-
This is the Hour of Lead-
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow-
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go-
Some part of me sees that I am not frozen, not shut down, not in survival mode, not life threatened. But I am in the pressured doing zone of the sympathetic nervous system, the mode of fight and flight. I see all of this, but in the first couple of days, that seeing part is not yet strong enough to step in to help, to bring the over active part of me to refuge. Like Humpty Dumpty I, and so many others, have had a fall to our sense of our ordered and predictable and controllable worlds. I can only barely imagine what courses through the bodies of those who live in Iceland beside the volcanoes with the uncertainty of what will happen next. First, the release of adrenalin in order to prepare for fight, flight, a mode of survival gifted us from our animal descendants who lived in jungle and forest. And if a way out cannot be found then frozen shut down: “Feet, mechanical, go round….A quartz contentment.”
After a couple days, I notice myself walking very quickly through the streets, racing to Croatian Airlines, to see if there is a plane going out, to anywhere, anytime soon. Suddenly, somehow, I stop rushing. I find myself recalling how, many many years ago, I was on a peace walk with Thich Nhat Hanh.He walked in a slow walking meditation at the rear of the long long line along 42nd Street, heading to Times Square. Here and now, in Zagreb, I sense Thich Nhat Hanh walking beside me. I slow my pace. Somehow, from somewhere, across my face lovingly comes the smile of peace. Ah, now, I feel the tender spring air touch my skin. I take a deep breath. I register that my heart rate is slowed and even. ‘Where are you rushing?” I hear a voice ask. ‘You are safe. You are loved.” Tears of gratitude well up. I recall Thich Nhat Hanh saying that when he was on the ocean taking children to safety from war in Vietnam, it took only the calm even breathing of one person to keep the boat from tipping everyone overboard into the ocean.
Is it the voice of Thich Nhat Hanh I hear? Sometimes, our Witness Self appears beside us as an embodied other, a guide, a companion offering calming and solace and seeing along the way. For some, the Witness Companion is Mary, for others the Shekinah, and for others Kawn Yin. For others an animal companion, a spirit, a mantra, a song may come. We are creatures who are sustained by images of wholeness that arise from the depth of our being. In such a moment, for me, the imaginal presence of Thich Nhat Hanh comes from I do not know where to provide ground for my feet, my breath and my spirit. The coming of an imaginal presence restores both a sensory and spiritual container. It arises out of a deep reservoir of inner sustenance and more often than not comes unbidden. It helps us learn that within us there are hidden healing resources that we do not know are there. In this way, over a long time we come to learn a faith in the flowing forth of something life giving from an invisible source.
Oftentimes, for myself and for those I am privileged to work with in psychotherapy, in the midst of the most trying moments, the coming of an image of wholeness gives a sense of comfort and hope when all else seems rent in bits and pieces. I am reminded of a woman I work with who felt that in her life she was standing in terror on a Tibetan rope bridge which was being tossed side to side by a strong wind and from which she could fall into a bottomless abyss. Somehow, holding onto the rope sides of the bridge, she managed to cross over and to find waiting for her a bed of leaves on the other side. For weeks to come, this was her unexpected place of refuge and rest. One day, to this bed of leaves arrived Joan of Arc, her Witness Presence come with the sword of her heart’s strength to slowly support and guide this woman to a new land and life, a new love map, on this new side of the bridge of her life.
At other times this week, as I sit in my hotel room, or rest on my bed, I find that placing one hand on my belly, and the other on my heart, helps bring the breath of life down from where it has gotten stuck and narrow. I let the hands become the hands of a comforting other, those of some one known and dear to me. Hands touching, hands comforting, I witness the hands of holding, of making whole, making contact with my breath. Alone in Zagreb, I make breathing space for the hand to make contact with the waves of breath rising and falling, allow for Witness to be present, give space for the touch of compassion. The hand, the face, the voice of the other brings loving presence into the breath at the very pulsating core of being, into the living moment of Now. I am alone here in Zagreb, but the hand of Presence, of Life, is with me and upon me.
As I walk slowly along the street, I begin to notice for the first time, the details of the old European buildings, the carvings, the stonework. I stop and touch the wood of the carved old door, wonder how long it has been here, opening and closing for people to come and go. Opening and closing like my breath. Then I think of the volcanoes in Iceland, how long have they been there? What is this one trying to tell us with the voice of its eruption? Now my mind- heart is curious, interested in these questions, wanting space and time to reflect. Now, I am living in the wave of what Winnicott calls potential space, space in which to play, to make meaning, to create. This is a very different space from the one of urgency in which I am shut down, narrowed, with no possibility to open possibility.
I stop and sit on a bench. Stilling myself, I open and listen for Mother Earth to speak out of the volcano, which is a part of her great body. For each of us stranded somewhere here in Europe, it is a different message that could be heard. For all of us, however, once we can slow down our stress response, there comes an opportunity for listening, receiving. I hear Mother Earth say to me, to our world, loud and clear and with great strength:
“I will stop your airplanes, I will stop your greedy grasping of the skies and the seas and the seeds and the creatures of the sacred earth. Do you really believe that you are in control of this world? Well, now you must stop and see that you are not. Now you have yet another chance to hear from me how we are interdependent, interbeing. A volcano erupts in Iceland and all your airports close, fruit that grows in Africa will not reach you, soccer balls made in Pakistan will not reach you, markets will collapse. Please, begin to see, to know in your gut how no one is alone, how we are all one people, one body. Will you stop your wars? Will you begin to take care of one another? Will you take care of me?”
And why Iceland I ask:
“Iceland was chosen to suffer the greatest financial loss in the current crisis. And now the first colvanic eruption in two hundred years brings all the world to a half. Why Iceland? Iceland knows darkness for a part of the year. I want you to be in contact with the darkness within you. I want you to be in an inner darkness in which you are slowed down, in which you cannot see where you are going, the darkness in which you come to a full stop and wait and wait until you begin to see and to speak in a new way from a light deep within. From out ofthis darkness, after the terror of feeling powerless, the Witness may begin to shine forth. A more evolvedhuman seeing becomes possible, a seeing with loving kindness, of mercy that knows how everything and everyone alive is vulnerable to harm and in need of your care. I have stopped you, slowed you down. Be still and slow and look up into the vast blue heavens which are resting from you. Look down to the earth and know your true size. Look inside, begin to listen, to hear.”
I am reminded of the German philosopher, Karlfried Durkheim who said:
“As his prayer became more and more recollected, he himself had less and less to say. In his tranquility he became a listener….Prayer is becoming still, remaining still and waiting…until one hears…”
I take out my journal and write all of this. I see that in the few blocks walk from the hotel to this bench outside Croatian Airlines, I have moved through the waves of agitation, from racing in urgency, from being caught in the fight flight response, to calming, to deep reflecting, to receiving and making meaning. Wave after wave after wave. Each wave a necessary guest.
I have moved from the triggered, narrowed, trapped old brain survival response to a body calming breathing (with the help of my inner guide, Thich Nhat Hanh), to a reflective, listening spacious play space of creation. At CIL, we call awareness of this rhythmic movement the Practice of Presence. The Buddhists knew about the Practice of Presence centuries before our neuroscientists had the technology to explain its movement in the brain and nervous system. The Dalai Lama has had the intellectual modesty to say to the neuroscientists that if they would find anything that would refute the centuries old Buddhist philosophy and practice, he would have to alter his beliefs and would be more than willing to do so. Such is the flexibility and humility of the response of the Witness Self. And, of course, the findings of the neuroscience research only corroborate this ancient wisdom.
BECOMING PEACE
I believe this Practice of Presence to be of great spiritual importance,for out of mindfulness heart practice, there inevitably comes the impulse to be kind, to see the human face of the other. I return to my hotel and call American Airlines. Another wave of urgency comes upon me : It goes like this: hand on phone, automatic trigger to: this call is serious for my survival! Will I be able to impress upon the agent (who holds all the power) how imperative it is that I get home? With the humor of irony, I (the Witness me) says to survival me:” Like no one else stranded in Europe has the same need. Only you. Right.” Here is a wave of survival mode. Consciousness narrows. My own survival is all that is at stake. There is no one else. The woman must hear the adrenalin in my voice. She says: “don’t panic”.
As soon as I hear her, I come to myWitness, whorealizes that the agent has probably become a vessel for the panic button of each person calling her. I say, “I am so sorry. You certainly don’t need that tone of voice coming at you. You must be over the top there, coping with everyone’s concerns.” She laughs the laugh of relief. “Beyond over the top” she says. Over the airwaves, we connect. We become human together. She checks flights. I hold on for a long time. I sit quietly and repeat the Hebrew Prayer: “Shiviti Shekinah, l’negdi tamid” May I see you with G-d’s eyes. Time goes by. I repeat the Buddhist Metta prayer: Agent, may you be happy. May you be safe and protected from all harm. May you be healthy. May you do your work with ease. She returns to tell me “No, there are no flights today”. It does not matter. What matters is that we have been kind to one another. The wave of fear and urgency has moved out. The wave of mind heart is here now. And so it will go, probably for the rest of my days. It does not matter that the waves of fear do not move out to sea permanently. It is the practice itself that matters. And it matters to be kind to each wave as it comes, not deeming agitation worse or calm better, just the being with each wave.
For me, becoming peace begins in the practice of daily presence in the smallest of ways and moments, by defusing the little pebble of disturbance and turning it into a small kindness. It is my dream that if we each practice with our little pebbles of disturbance in our lives, then perhaps one day we will not need to send anyone out to plant land mines or to defuse them. And then we will wake up each morning knowing:
From the poet, Naomi Shihab Nye:
….it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread
The practice of presence comes in waves. Waves of upset, of falling apart; waves of calming, returning to the breath, to the sensory container; waves of seeing the other, entering the being human together container; waves of gratitude for touching one another with kindness, being held in the light of the spiritual container.
And all the time, the Witness seeing, no judgment, welcoming all that arises and moves through.
Again, a poet says it best:
Rumi: The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and
invite them in
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond
So, my friends, those I know and those who I do not know, here I am sitting in an old world café in Zagreb, having a good cup of green tea. What can be bad? It is Thursday and I have a flight back home on Saturday. It will depend on the kindness of Mother Volcano and of the winds.
In the meanwhile, I will continue to be with the waves as they pass through. It is good. It is very good. My love map is growing, changing, healing. Each of us in our own way, working on our lives, one breath, one pebble at a time, is helping to make a new map for our precious lives and for our precious world.
May we each be happy. May we each be safe and protected from all harm. May we each be able to come with our mind heart to witness all the guests as they arrive into the house of our being. Especially may it be so for the people of Iceland.
Before I close, I want to thank each person who was so kind to me during my time in Zagreb, those I know and those I do not. You know who you are. And I want to thank all the friends and family in America who kept me tethered to the kindness of contact.
