Take Heart

I’ve been on a meditation path since my late 20’s, and I consider myself a yogini. Yet here I am at a Jesuit Catholic retreat center in the foothills of the Rockies. It’s called Sacred Heart which is interesting in the first place because of the bouts of heart failure I’ve experienced in the past. I know how important my lovely physical heart is, I seem to dwell in my spiritual heart center. That is where I receive such joy! And that is where I am touched so deeply that I feel my heart breaking. Though I can’t control the tears and fears I feel for the world, I am discovering that I can care with all my being and give fully without tearing my heart from my body.

I came here to Sacred Heart because I need the silence, the stillness. I don’t need to hear words about the risen Christ or listen to readings from the Bible. Other than The Psalms, which I read often, I’m not sure I even like the book that much. I do, however, feel a deep and direct, intimate connection with Christ’s healing love.

Over a lifetime often lived on some sort of edge or other, once in a while I intuited this love which flows to each of us. One dark night high above the Pacific Ocean, I was stoned and talking with stars. Suddenly out of nowhere I felt a beneficent energy—like two strong hands—pull me back as I wandered too close to the edge of a cliff. Years later when I found myself struggling for breath in a hospital it occurred to me that I could pray for that loving embrace and my own healing. I could ask Divine Mother to be with me and in me and all around me, and I could keep asking until somewhere during the ordeal I felt her grace, forgiveness, and love. Oh my.

So I don’t need to be convinced that God exists, and I don’t want to live in a country where a small-minded, judgmental version of the mystery of Christianity is shoved down my throat. Lord help us!

I appreciate the thousands of years of spiritual awareness and profound devotion which kept alive the teachings of Christ. But it pisses me off that at the Synod of Whitby in 664 in Northumbria the early Christian Church decided to strictly follow Rome (as in Roman Catholic)(as in pure patriarchy) instead of allowing the much gentler and humane Celtic understanding of Christ’s words practiced mostly in Ireland and Scotland and Wales. The decision at the synod wasn’t just about things like when to celebrate Easter or the monks’ hairdos. The early Celtic church embraced Jesus as the light of God in each person and in all creation. We see through otherworldly art such as The Book of Kells how they expressed their vision and worship of the Divine abundantly in each activity of the the day. If we are open to it, we can hear and feel this presence in our own way. It is as close as our breath if we choose to notice. And we express that awareness in our own personal language.

My lifetime spent in the interior quest for truth makes me shy of Religion. That’s because I’m deep down allergic to AUTHORITY. So I’ve stumbled along to find my own path.

Walking alone this blue misty morning I am reminded of the years I lived alone in France in the foothills of the Massif Central. Looking out toward the plains beyond my beloved hills of Colorado, I pause impressed with the eloquent stillness of a statue of Christ. Though cast in stone, he seems alive and elegant in his flowing robes. I notice his hands giving and at the same time receiving, as in the deeper yoga, as in Tibetan tonglen, as in any sort of prayer, or singing along with the Beatles, Mother Mary come to me …. Let It Be.

You can feel the energy flowing to all as this cosmic presence receives our fears. It feels like he’s saying, “ Leave it with me; don’t destroy yourself with the pain of the world you can’t control.”

Love Shine on each and all, within and without.

Heal us and our planet.