~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
I glance through the tree house window,
a wave of condensation at its base,
a product of the cold of the late afternoon.
The boughs of the spruce surrender their color
to the shadows, but beyond them a faint light
lingers in the mist, and the distant lavender hills
rise to a soft golden sky. “Self portrait.” The words
float into my mind, the view becoming a mirror.
This time of year, when the clouds cover the sky
and the nights come all too soon, it can feel
as if all the color has drained from the world.
The summer song of the trees has given way
to their clattering in the cold wind. At my feet,
as I walk this field, only faded, fallen leaves remain.
The brush that surrounds me is brittle and gray
and tangled with burrs and knife-edged thorns.
But if I follow the path and keep climbing,
wound around the trees to the east
I’ll come across a patch of bittersweet vines,
their berries like lanterns gleaming
through the gloom. The old timers say
there’s a legend that if you gaze at them
and listen for what they have to say
they will tell you secrets that fill you
with understanding. “Test it,” they say.
“These lanterns aren’t here for nothing.
It could be that they’re meant for you.”
Softer than breath, the spirits of the fallen ones
rise free, etching on our minds the memory
of their summer days. Oh, how they danced then,
so supple and alive, as green and shining as the breeze.
We thought they would go on forever,
so joyous was their song. Now, as we gaze
at the emptiness of the spaces they once filled,
we are bereft. The world is not the same
without them, nor will it be, ever again.
There’s little but our souls we would not give
to look once more into their faces, to feel their bodies,
warm beneath our fingertips.
But no, the spaces that were theirs are vacant now,
except for this river of tears and the acrid taste of pain.
And how we cling to our anguish, for it’s all we have left,
just this, to fill the unfillable spaces.
Yet, despite our pleas – Don’t take my pain!
It’s all I have now! – eventually the last tear dries,
leaving only the space and its ringing silence
and this late autumn breeze that we would not trade,
so tender and deep is its song.
I have no idea what prompted me to climb
this hill. I haven’t been up here in two years,
maybe longer. But I nearly floated to the top,
entranced by the beauty of it all. And now,
my reward: this view, and look, how perfect
is it that the young family I saw down below
is making the climb. Ha! The littlest one
looks three quarters of a century younger
than I. And here we all are, in this woods,
its song singing all around us.
The deer. I think they’re appearing now
in my dreams, messengers of some sort.
I wouldn’t have seen this one, distant
as he was and a wall of twigs between us,
but for the way he leaped up the hill.
I stepped to my side to get a better view
and when I looked again, he was gone.
In a flash. Just like that. But I felt him.
So I stood still, barely breathing, staring.
And so did he, from right there, by the fallen log,
still as could be, barely breathing, staring
right back. A flicker of acknowledgment
shot between us, signaling our respect
for one another. Then we moved on.
A shaft of late afternoon light spills
across the fallen sycamore leaf,
its broad ivory underside facing up from a bed
of crumpled maples, and a single gray maple
resting atop it, tenderly, it seems, grace notes
of red, green and yellow flowing past, the whole
of it breathing some soft, nostalgic song.
It carries me into a dream of a quilt that covered
my great grandmother’s bed, where I would
fall asleep gazing at its patterns and the stitches,
so tiny, so carefully placed, while she cooked
in the kitchen, quietly singing that her bonny
lies over the ocean, over the sea. I watch my mind
place the image of these November leaves
atop my grandma’s quilt, and I nod, smiling.
“Nesting bird,” some voice said. And after that
I couldn’t see it any other way. Words do that.
They hold things fixed in time. “Of course
you would see nests and birds,” another voice,
more from the left brain side of things, said
in a most reasonable tone. All this chatter!
I look again. I know it was once a great tree.
I photographed it myself. I think how it took
tens and tens of years and weather to render
this design And here we are, gazing at it,
our imaginations weaving stories, the whole
of us awake with interest and appreciation.
I was thinking the other day about how each of us really does live in our own, unique Reality Bubble. It’s hardly a new thought. But lately it’s struck me with a new clarity.
Oh sure, there’s the world we all more or less agree on: That’s a tree. The sky is blue. This is a table. Some call this layer of reality “the materium.”
But when it comes to remembering things we observed, or interpreting events, we step onto some shaky ground. Ask any police officer who’s ever taken an accident report from eye witnesses. Three people will give three different accounts. We even have to watch sports replays to decide whether the officials made the right call.
And when it comes to what we believe about, say, gender, or religion, or politics, well, watch out! The ground gets more than shaky. It sort of resembles quicksand, where, before you know it, you’re sunk.
I took a psychology class once from a professor who had a special interest in belief systems. He found three guys in different mental hospitals, each of whom believed he was Jesus Christ, and he had them all transferred to the same hospital and assigned to the same support group. His hope was that their delusions would be lessened. But instead, they began by aggressively arguing with each other about which of them was holier. And finally each found ways to convince himself that the other two were, in one case, insane, and in the other, dead and being operated by a machine.
(The professor wrote about their encounters in a book called The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, if you’d like to read the whole story. )
The primary lesson the professor brought away from the experiment is that we strongly identify with our beliefs. When they’re threatened, we respond defensively because it feels as if we, personally, are being attacked. We each believe that what we believe is the true reality. And our brains work hard to support our beliefs. They carefully scour all incoming data and present us with the evidence that matches our beliefs, filtering out the stuff that doesn’t.
And because people who hold beliefs that are similar to ours reinforce our identity, we tend to like them better than people whose beliefs are different. And the more different the beliefs are, the more disturbing we find the person who holds them.
If we want to create more harmony with others, a good place to start is by recognizing that we aren’t our beliefs, and our beliefs don’t necessarily provide us with a true picture of the way things really are. Truth, as the saying goes, is under no obligation to conform to our beliefs.
Other people aren’t their beliefs either. But they probably feel that their beliefs are a part of their identity, just as we tend to feel that what we believe is an intimate part of who we are.
Beliefs are just thoughts, repeated so often that we assume they must be true. Maybe they’ve been repeated to us since our early childhood. Maybe we picked them up in school or adopted them in college because they seemed to have so much proof behind them. And our brains have been bringing us evidence ever since to reassure us.
Sometimes, if you’re very tactful, persistent, and patient, you can provide enough evidence to someone to persuade him to accept something that you believe in place of a belief he has held to be true. But his first response is likely to be defensive. (And later, he may conclude that you’re either insane or dead and being operated by a machine!)
But on the whole, the most harmonious way to deal with those who hold beliefs that differ from yours is to recognize how crucial our beliefs are to our sense of being, and to respect that each of us is entitled to his or her own view of things.
Look for the things on which you can agree, and agree to disagree on the rest. And above all, try not to take offense when someone’s beliefs are different from your own. If you’re really brave, try looking at things from their point of view. Who knows? It may turn out that you discover your own view needs some alteration. Reality is, after all, a very complex and mysterious place.
Wishing you a week of open-mindedness and love.
Warmly,
Susan
I wait for these, these sycamore leaves and oaks,
the last to fall, some of the sycamores larger than my face,
all of them larger than my palm, and so rich in color.
This is the quilt’s top layer, the topmost shield against the snow,
coming soon now, snow. But not today. Today is still warm
and the burnished umber of the fallen sycamores and oaks
spreads itself beneath the tall trunks of the mighty ones
who bore them. I breathe their fragrance, their songs
rustling around my ankles as I walk.
It doesn’t matter that everyone else
has shed their leaves. Someone needs
to carry joy flags into the winter.
Let it be you.
Sing, even though the choir has gone silent.
Be brilliantly awake while everyone else
Is lost in dreams. Skip when the walkers shuffle.
Dance when the fearful ones lean against the wall.
Believe in Yes even when all around you
are lost in the illusion of No.
Let your heart brim with gratitude
and with praise for life even when the world
seems drenched in sorrow.
Someone needs to carry joy flags into the winter.
Why not let it be you?