We meander up the track in the way only toddlers know how to. Lola is leading me on an adventure, gifting me her eyes and setting the pace. There is no overriding aim yet a thousand possibilities, no urgency except for the present. From sour blackberry to sweet blackberry we scour the bushes and delight in the butterflies, the flowers, the stones on the ground. I reflect on the past few months, how steady waves of love have accelerated the continued healing of my heart, replacing marrow deep dread and groundwater fear with the abundant love of the spirit. The journey of a soul crushed, a mind scattered and body abandoned is another story. Right now, as my daughter points to the moss infused woods the antenna of my heart is more responsive than it has been for years, porous and pulsing I experience a unity which chases despair from the unknown corners of my being and replaces it with joy. Such gratitude to arrive in this place of now, which swells as my mind further stills. This foretaste is a blessing that transfigures all the straining, the countless pills and tears. Experiences like these render new meaning to the pain and the showing up to therapy and the stumbling through the grey dust of life. I consider the friends and family who have loved me forwards on the journey and the way nature provided sanctuary when no human structures could. How every word was holy, whether it was repeating the Jesus prayer, a mantra or cry for help, even in profound felt absences God was fuller than my idea of what I needed.
We arrive at a pool of water cupped by generous oaks, beech
and pine. Each tree a vertical pillar of flowing water transmitting their
unique energy fields over the surface of the pool. Each one cooling the air and
directing its flow. We sit next to one another on the jetty, my feet immersed
in the fresh water, hers dangling above it. How much love was released when we
first met is a wonderful mystery, my thawing in parallel with her growth, a
trajectory of subtle change. Time has slowed down. Dragonflies with ancient
sight watch us in slow motion. They sketch geometric lines across the water
like they did for the dinosaurs. Their joyous levitations blur colour with
sound and their acrobatic collisions with each other score the constant dance
of life. The same spirit that brooded over primordial oceans now spirals within
and between us and around us, we are encircled, we are held.
With a directive tone and twinkle in her eye Lola says
‘daddy, water’. Pulling at my t-shirt and pointing, she wants me to get in. The
invitation is lovely. Taking off my clothes I slide into the water up to my
neck with my hands on the jetty, conscious of Lola sliding in after me. I feel
calm, she is sat cross legged seemingly in a state of bliss. She is delighting
in me being in the water. With a degree of authority, urgency even, Lola
instructs me to put my head under the water. She can’t say the exact words but
it doesn’t take long to clarify that she wants me to fully immerse myself. I
plunge in, as I resurface I notice the ripples catching the light, waves of
sunlight in even spacing travel up her little body and across her face. ‘Again’
she says, each time I rise Lola chants ‘again’ with a beaming face. Every submission
casts a fresh layer from a tired self aside. The creases of my mind unfold into
peace. Psychic fractures fused together and knitted new. Again I go under,
again I emerge and the water runs from my face and with it the need to be right, a
gentleness of spirit is available. Again I am under water, I rise up out of
self-loathing and small horizons and into a pervading goodness. I kiss Lola’s
feet as her laughter calls forth mine. In wonder, I hear the call to let the
spirit change me and bear their fruit. A pre-occupation with myself could be
replaced with kindness, instead of a dissatisfaction with reality, patience is
possible and that desire for control can be shed for faithfulness. With clarity
I felt empowered to step into self-control and away from the mindless habits of
our culture of comfort. Are we not all beings of light? The one and the same
light? May this not remain hidden, or unrealised, may it brighten as we
surrender. It is my experience that we cannot manufacture the faith or the love
or the hope, they are all in the waiting wrote TS Eliot. His counsel was to
wait without thought, I don’t know if that is sound advice or not, though it
speaks to my journey so far. His poem 'wait without hope' found me at the right time, this pieces title is a nod to that fact.
We headed back, sunlight warm on our skin. Child curled in my arms, having held the space for me she now rests. I have been on a slow walk back to the centre of my being, though there have been strides too, moments arriving quickly in unexpected fullness, like today. The ordinary sacred moments like noticing the shadows on the flank of a tree trunk, an honest conversation, sharing food, of someone praying with me, or in re-connection or in solitude. The encounters were always gifts, making it possible to embrace the shared gift we have in life. In the centre of the soul waits God, for we are all one. I built a wall around that central point in my soul and told myself I was separate or that I had no soul at all. God was constantly lapping on that wall like a gentle wave waiting for me to stop and in expectant silence invite them to emanate from my centre out. Truly I am a beginner, if worldviews were languages then I could say a phrase or two in many and would relish their tones, I am drawn to perennial truth. Yet this weekend marks a return to my mother tongue.
