Awe-kward Falls

 I fell yesterday. It wasn’t a bad fall, no part of me was broken, but something familiar and debilitating happened. I want to explore the sensations that accompany such a loss. A fall, no matter how bad, carries with it a great vulnerability, a humiliation, that puts our humanity in a perspective that cannot be forgotten. Falling is a kind of human birthright that no one talks about, and most everyone experiences. It is a most awesome loss, which underscores the gravity-defying nature of our kind, and the brittleness of that nature. All in all — it is a recipe for a moment of deep circumspection.

 

Falling is the sixth leading cause of death. It is often the precursor of even worse conditions, such as MS, brain tumors, aging or other forms of major course changes. In my case, it is the left-over sign of a brain syndrome which took away my balance, amongst many other things. It is a constant uncertainty I have to live with. Falling has become a punctuation mark in my life.

 

The essence of this experience is that it restores awareness of how fragile everything is, and how quickly everything is passing. There is no reminder of impermanence quite like this one. Falling not only underscores the existential situation we are all in, but it makes clear that no one is beyond it. The way such a fall brings home the personal and makes it clear is incredibly powerful. Suddenly the grave and gravity become linked, vivid and omnipresent. Falling is sobering — a chilling shadow of one’s mortality passes through.

 

I thought it interesting to put awe-kward together with the fragility of falling. Awe is something nearly everyone wants to experience, yet this kind of awe, which reminds us of how large and mighty the world is, and how small and vulnerable we are, is not the experience of awe that we all are seeking. Awe lifts us up, so does falling, but not in the straight-line way most people think. Falling lifts one up, as it knocks one down. Suddenly, perspective clears from the fog of everyday life, revealing the awesome gift that has been bestowed on each of us.  Lucidity breaks through.

 

The heart is broken open with a good fall. When that happens, connection prevails. Falling is a great tenderizer.  It underscores the great tenderness of Life. The family of mankind becomes perceptible. Brokenness is wholeness in some paradoxical way, and the light shines through. Ward is an old English word, it used to mean protect. I was taken with its presence here. Falling restores balance, and reveals the form of protection that endures. One must go down, in order to discover what really leads one up. 

 

In the stream of today’s consciousness, a fall is tragic, it can lead to injury, or death. In our isolated world it is a very fearsome thing. Mostly, it’s something to be avoided. But, in a more unenculturated way, it can be a form of spiritual medicine, a fall into a zone of reality that restores perspective, and provides a hard-won lesson. 

 

Falling can be good luck. The attitude of the one falling is what determines. I’m not talking about rigid positivity, it is the will to learn, to let uncertainty deliver you where it may. Falling and flying are really related. Did you know that a baby bird has to fall to learn to fly?  So, do we.

 

 

 

Monks & Forest Dwellers

 

“We have more possibilities available in each moment

 than we realize.”

                                                                                     Thich Nhat Hahn

 

Preparing for the last phase of my life has been an extraordinary process. I’m not talking about getting my worldly affairs in order. Rather, I’m trying to think about what I want to do with the time left to me. It could only be a moment, a few years, a decade, or longer. But, it is getting close to the end — becoming more palpable everyday — and is growing more important, as I feel my love of this broken place growing too. How I am with what is here, calls me deeper, begging me to notice and respond. I know less than I did before, and it makes preparing, a particularly poignant problem, and a stupefying opportunity.

 

I want to find a good way to honor the whole of this existence. I don’t really know how to do that, but I know I want to try. I don’t even know what I am doing here. Still, I feel some kind of obligation to be here even more fully than I have been in the past. I guess I have Death to thank for my burgeoning desire to live my final days intentionally. I feel like Jesus in the garden — I want this cup to be full, as it passes. Looking around, I know other humans have felt this way, so I am turning to them to get a sense of how to respond to Mystery’s call.

 

I am in a period of discernment. That is what prospective monks go through as they try to determine whether becoming a person of the cloth is appropriate for them. I am feeling a calling, just not toward becoming a traditional monk. I can feel the urge toward service, and toward slowing down, and living more intentionally. I can even feel the pull toward renouncing the world. But instead of a religious, or ideological affiliation, I am drawn to serving, and learning from, the living community. I want to be Life’s advocate, perhaps a monk-like plain clothes lay person intent upon living fully for spiritual reasons.

 

The monk has a simplifying presence, having left worldliness behind.  I, on the other hand, feel my calling to be to serve, by staying in the midst of this world, and relating with what is here. It is a twisting path — toward chaos, and human frailty — that calls me. I perceive the miraculous in daily contact, in the turmoil of relationship, in the heartbroken. Hopes that are dashed are wondrous things, they create an openness to what is. And that, is where I want to be. I want to grow, and serve like a monk, by paying attention to the medicine of the moment.

 

In the Hindu tradition they have a notion of life-cycle development. It has four phases, the third of which suggests that with retirement comes a period of renouncing the world, leaving home, and living in the forest. The forest dweller is somewhat equivalent to an elder. Old people have generally left behind who they used to be, and now live at the fringe of society. They are headed into the unknown, dwelling in the wild. The oldest religion in the world sees this period of life as a time for securing one’s relationship with the Divine. It is the moment in life when all remaining adjustments occur. This time of life is compelling; living within a magnetic uncertainty.

 

I feel the gravitational pull of the unknown mystery that is shaping, what I have called, my life. It is clear to me, that I am not solely my own. Something is living through me. I don’t know what, but I feel it. This something, has me becoming more interested in living, as if I am being called. I want to live like never before, and I know, I want to die serving what is growing within me. Such intensity is now my lot, and for that I am grateful. I am some combination of a monk serving mystery, and a forest dweller living out his days adjusting to the Divine. I guess that means I am some kind of undercover agent, a quasi-monk forest dweller.

 

How about you?