May 23rd (I think). Blog #9

There were so many big and little losses as I closed down my life and medical/psychiatric practice preparing to depart for sabbatical. In fact that letting go was part of the purpose of this leave taking.
In many cases, they were expected, some not so much….

So, I began to take note when my trusty REI water bottle was lost on the bus on the first day, on the way from the airport to my hotel in Dublin. Not hard to replace with a serviceable alternative of the disposable plastic bottle that is filling up and choking ever enlarging parts of our ocean and landfills.
Yes, I was jet lagged and getting used to carrying all my stuff on a bus that first day, but I try to contemplate the little happenings that occur, asking, “what is psyche or spirit saying?”. If the world is as mysterious and alive as it seems to me, every serendipitous event is an opportunity to wonder and see how I participated or in some way, caused that event. What is the message in it? It’s not that I necessarily expect to find “an answer”‘ but there is something going on, “something afoot in the universe”, that bears paying attention and asking questions, especially the ones without answers or the ones to which we have to find our own answers.

Later, when crossing by ferry, from west of Ireland to the Gaelic island of Arronmore, out on deck, I was paying for my ticket, and the wind took an extra 10 euro note and blew it into the sea. It felt like some kind of offering to the goddess of the ocean. I didn’t ponder it much, other than to take note, as somehow it felt right, as if it were a part of the passage fare, in this realm steeped in faery queens and ancient Celtic sense of the feminine aliveness in the terrain, landscape and seascape of fair Eire.

On another occasion, during a marathon series of rental car, taxi, train, ferry, bus, train, and taxi from Dublin to Belfast, to Cairnryan, to Glasgow, I lost a 3 month supply of a needed medication. Over the following weeks, it required a lot of time, money, resources, anxious attention, and support from multiple people in US and in Scotland to replace. After calling my pharmacy at home and Pat kindly picking it up and mailing it, the British customs held on to it for indeterminate reasons and amount of time, that ended up being an extra 10 days beyond the 6 days transit of priority mail. Thus, it was received in Kippen after I left and arrived there on the evening before I left the country for Crete. The dear folks at The monastery at Dighty, Kippen got to the post office and ovnighted it to my hotel, arriving the morning of my departure from the country. What was that about? Humbly needing to live with total uncertainty and helplessness with unreadable bureaucracy, a painful opportunity to receive help from a lot of people with a personal matter? Sigh, go figure.

On the 3rd evening that I was at the wee monastery at Dighty (pronounced “digty”), I was reviewing and deleting duplicate photos of lesser quality on my digital camera. There were over 500 pictures, from home and family events and the entire first month of my sabbatical, all of Ireland. They disappeared from the camera, digitally deleted and unrecoverable. That was painful. And, yes, what was that about? What was psyche doing here, as I did it unconsciously to myself? Perhaps, I was to focused on my egoic collection of cool pictures to show someday, maybe in some kind of program about sabbatical etc? Maybe, I was objectifying my experience by focusing too much on capturing an event or scene rather than fully experiencing it, with beginners mind, in the moment, viscerally, body and soul as well as mind? I can imagine all kinds of lessons that my soul, with the aid of the trickster and the fool, is providing. I know and confess that I have judged others who descend on some amazing site with cameras whirring and snapping before they have seen and encountered the wonder of it. I have judged people who walk along a beautiful path, talking on cell phone and totally unaware of their surroundings. As I judged, so will I be judged. As My ego smugly compares myself’s “genuine encounter” with the world around me, I discover that I too am missing it a lot of the time, living within my head, my labeling, my lists, my plans, and with spiritual gluttony, adding to my ego’s CV of cool and “special” experiences, places, etc.

In each case, psyche, soul, God, the universe gives me an opportunity to feel the loss, notice my attachment to it, let it go, and choose my response along with whatever prayers or cursing that may emerge in the moment of shock and frustration, and tendency to want to accuse and kick myself for being imperfect, again….. “Just breathe….” and notice, another opportunity for awareness.

I have loved and been moved by the ballad below since I first heard it. It continues to give me frissons without stopping whenever I encounter it again. I encourage you to read it through carefully, let it in.

Anthem

Leonard Cohen

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again,
Bought and sold again,
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed,
the marriage spent,
Yeah, the widowhood
of every government–
signs for all to see.

I can’t run no more
With that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
a thundercloud
And they’re going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring.

You can add up the parts
but you won’t have the sum.
You can strike a march,
There is no drum.
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
forget your perfect offering
there’s a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
forget your perfect offering
There’s a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.