Ice Cracks

Yesterday evening, after I posted "Building the Deep Freeze", I found myself feeling edgier and edgier.  I began shying away from interaction with others here, feeling for the first time since arriving in Adelynrood,  the "outsider".  At dinner I thought I saw incomprehension and disapproval in neutral faces, and wanted to separate myself, hide.  And, at dinner, I saw myself SEE disapproval in simply neutral faces. I made the connection of how I was feeling to having "shown" myself via this blog and then found myself thinking about completely erasing the blog. I was getting angry at those imaginary persons that would pity me from on high, and mad at myself for stepping into these memories and sharing them.  I found myself wanting to at least write a post saying, "You have to understand, I'm not like this anymore!"  LOL …. *sigh* ……  of course, part of me is EXACTLY like this and always will be; God bless her!   Anyway, this morning, all is well, and I am reminded once more of how so much of what we experience is simply the swirling of energy which moves and forms and coalesces for a bit around a life circumstance before dissolving and moving on to "Next!"   I was also reminded last night and this morning, how in the midst of any unpleasantness, even though we may be able to see what our mind is doing, see the coalescing of energy as just that, know that this feeling, whatever it is, will pass; that this "seeing" in itself changes nothing and nothing changes until it does.  It is not the whirlpool's decision alone that dissolves her form releasing water to flow on.  It is a collaborative event involving everything; water, stream bed, dirt bank, twigs and leaves in the water, and happens without plan or intent, arising spontaneously from the thus-ness of life.  

In my youth, I always thought I had to DO something to change how life was in the moment to change how I was feeling; that if I didn't DO something to "fix" whatever was hurting, I would be stuck there forever!  It took a long time and more than a few revelations to begin to see, (and believe), I didn't have to DO anything, because change was inevitable. This also meant I couldn't DO anything to hang on to those feelings that I liked.  This reverse side was a little bit harder to internalize and took years more….   

So, this morning I sat and cast my mind back to see if I could find that moment when I "knew" all this to be true.  I could not find that point of before and after, but my mind turned back to this memory I am about to share with you.  And in doing so, I see that perhaps it is not the long walks at all that are responsible for my coming out of the deep freeze, but perhaps it was walking back into the arms of nature and the beginning of reconnection with life I experienced there that set the stage for ……….. this.

How DID it all begin? 

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I remember now that I began long solitary walks as many of us do, in pain, out of a frustrated fight or flight response, that physiological reaction to life threatening situations. 

Daily, there was incredible pressure to run away and save myself from the disaster my life had become, but I couldn't leave, as I had work to do and responsibilities to others. With any escape route blocked, just like a cornered animal, I felt a need to attack and destroy that which was hurting me, but thankfully couldn't because life, experience, and the wisdom of others had taught me that this kind of reaction, in this type of situation, would only bring more hurt and many more regrets.

I was in my early 50's then, living in Costa Rica, and life was coming apart at the seams. My husband Mike and I had moved to the southern Pacific coast of this beautiful and wild country when he had been diagnosed with Post Polio Syndrome. In the 6 plus years we lived in our tiny village of Ojochal, we had quite accidentally become owners and operators of a successful little hotel by the name of Hotel Posada Playa Tortuga. Building it had been hard, time-consuming work of long hours and little financial return, but by the time 2004 rolled around, we were in the black and completing a new building which would sufficiently increase our profit to a level where we could hire a manager, begin to relax a little, and for the first time in 6 years, get away for several days at a time, together. It is also the time when I learned my husband had begun an affair. Like all acts of this kind, the affair brought enormous pain to each person involved, and washed over bystanders, near and far.

Early mornings in the black time before dawn have been my private time for as long as I can remember. This has always been my time to read, contemplate and meditate. But in these emotionally stormy days of the affair and dissolution of my marriage, I found I could not sit still for long. Like any frightened animal, I had a tremendous urge to attack and destroy that which threatened me. But I didn't want to do that, the threat was more imagined than real, (I wasn't going to die from what was occurring), and I knew that any unskillful anger I pumped into the situation would only cause more pain, for everyone, me included. So in frantic anxiety, I began to pace in my tiny meditation room/study/library tucked away in the eaves of our hotel, ducking underneath rough hewed beams and raw ceiling planks that separated me from the hundreds of bats that lived under our roof and kept the mosquito population around the hotel at a reasonable level. I could tell the agitated pacing I was doing disturbed these little neighbors I had come to love, and so, one day, before dawn, just as it was getting light enough to see your feet on the ground, unbearable angst drove me from the Posada, and I found myself furiously walking down its dirt drive into the hills of Costa Rica. That first day I walked for miles, back through single lane mud and gravel roads, sometimes so rutted, only horses could pass, roads I had only ever been on with a car, and then finally onto “sendaros” where only walkers, dogs and horses could go. There, for the first time since all the hurt had begun, I could really cry without censure or embarrassment for all I was losing, for all the pain Mike and I had created together, and for all the suffering all of us are immersed in. I walked that first day until morning was firmly entrenched, and when I returned to the hotel, to another day of dealing with and living in, hurtful, confused, fearful, angry, sad emotions, I found that the walk had bled off much of the fight or flight fury that had been buffeting me about so mercilessly. This walk, which had begun in an unbearable mixture of rage, grief and intellectual compassion, had led me to a peaceful place where I would be much less likely to impulsively lash out and add more to our already considerable burdens. What a relief!!!

I continued to walk every predawn of the next few months as Mike and I found a way to disentangle our lives in the least destructive way possible. As I walked, my attention began to peek outside from time to time; away from the inner hashing, brooding, grieving and planning it was doing, to began to notice once again, but in an unique way found only on foot, the Costa Rica I had been living with/in for 6 years. I noticed night jasmine as it closed and heard again bird song wake and greet the day. I deeply saw sunlight reflected in mud puddles and delighted in the many small cascades misting in the early morning sun, making rainbows. I saw again, or maybe really for the first time, lizards warming themselves in the new sunlight and I thrilled to multicolored frogs peeping, croaking and galumphing near myriad small streams and in the nearby trees. Many mornings, as dawn grew into day, I would meet a Costa Rican man heading out to his fields and we would trade a “Buenas dias” and maybe chat for a few minutes about the weather. And always, I would eventually begin to smell morning breakfasts as they were cooked in oft time unseeable households telling me it was time to return to my own waking hotel.  One ordinary, and by now familiar morning, I saw a Jagarundi on a high road, way up in the hills, and as we paused to stare into each other's eyes, I knew I was free. 

 Not that I didn't hurt anymore, I did, and would for a good long time; but I knew that I was no longer in danger of lashing out and hurting myself or others. I felt such a wave of gratitude, and as I walked home that morning, to the place I was about to leave forever, I knew, that out of all of this chaos, a special gift had been given to me. I had a new way of being in the world. Uncontrollable emotions had driven me into the road, through forest paths and onto trackless beaches and boulder fields. They had pushed with pain and led with pleasure right into the midst of flowing life where I had just begun to really live. I was a walker now, firmly rooted in the world, a practitioner of moving meditation, and for this, I am eternally grateful to Mike and his new wife.