Some days ago I was feeling very stressed by what seems to be on my plate. DC is always there with me as I am with him and that let's me know logically that it is our collective plate. But my nervous system seems unable to absorb what logic can see. However much psychological work I have done (and I have done a lot) the body does seem to keep the score. (I've a copy of The body keeps the score by Bessel van der Kolk waiting to be read.) It's odd that even as I approach sixty events from childhood compounded with a basically hyper-sensitive nervous system, should continue to play out through fear. Such is karma. And yet twenty years of zen practice does still shine though this. It very difficult to describe this 'shining', and it's nothing special or particularly bright. And it certainly doesn't stop the intense emotional overwhelm which can flare up. And so it was that I found myself trying to come back to a more grounded and spacious awareness asking what is it...? Or to return to the title of this blog what needs to let go? I remember decades ago hearing someone say that it can be quite difficult to find the attachments. Indeed... we are such complex creatures. Things settled and my thoughts turned to the wisdom that can shine through the pain. There is a kind of rock that shines whilst the sands of life shift. As my friend RM Mugo reminds me 'one foot on rock one on shifting sand'. In some way I think, my deepest fear is basically that everything I value will fall away and leave a broken egoic self unable to be the rock and unable to separate pain and suffering. Poetically, and thus in words and thus partial and... my mind... I glimpse...still, flowing, brilliant darkness, burning flame, motionless, illuminated by that which it illuminates... I doubt that I've glimpsed, but there it is a deep trust. It fades but as yet isn't lost. DC might remind me "costing not less than everything" from the final section of "Little Gidding", the last poem in the Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot.
And so another turn around the spiral. Onwards, one foot at a time, moment by moment. All is well. Ring out the bells of Norwich... Let go the bough...
The merit of this post is offered to DC.
