It is now 5 weeks since the silent meditation retreat at the IMS has been over. As I mentioned in my first blog on this retreat on May 24, it was the gentlest retreat I have ever experienced, and yet, there was a sense of a door opening. If the truth be known, on the last night I had a strong urge to be able to stay in retreat for a few months. With this rawness, coming back into the world left me feeling vulnerable at first.
It has been healing writing these stories. One could argue that they serve no purpose. Whatever the experience was, it is already in the past, and by writing them now, I could be falling into the trap of solidifying a story that has no reality in this present moment. There is some truth in that.
At the same time, however, these experiences have caused a ripple effect bringing me differently into this moment, the only moment I can really experience. By writing each story, it somehow has helped me enter the present with a lighter heart and mind. Maybe the best part of a story is not the telling of it, but giving an important experience shape so that it can be let go of.
The other day I was at a park with a young girl I do art and play therapy with. She was running with a bubble maker, and I was running behind with a hula hoop, trying to pass the hula hoop over the floating bubbles without touching them. We were both giggling. Some of the bubbles smashed into the hoop obliterating their brief existence. Others crashed into the ground, while a few rose up, caught in the drift of the air current for their moment of glory. They each had a lifespan, some longer, some shorter, but eventually they all popped into oblivion. We expect soap bubbles to pop and don’t get upset about their demise.
I see these stories like that. In the telling of each experience, they have floated free, each to go where they will before fading away. In the telling and the letting go, there has been a feeling of freedom. I have re-entered this life I call my own, with a sense of openness that was not there before. Sometimes I feel vulnerable, knowing there is more healing to come, and the ego always struggles with that prospect. And sometimes I chase soap bubbles with a hula hoop, exhilarating in a moment of giggles.
The ups and downs of life. How could one really expect anything else?
