Only I Will Know…

 

This morning I was doing chores around the house, and came in from the garage carrying a large load of freshly dried laundry, positioned in front of me and heaped nearly chin high, in a blue laundry basket.  And thus could not see the path in front of me...

I have a very old dog in the house, whose brown eyes are now clouded by cataracts, whose ears no longer hear me when I call, and whose penchant for laying directly in the most traveled traffic patterns in the house, would have been best remembered, by the owner of all that fresh laundry.

But seeing as how I did not remember her odd and quirky pattern of laying in the only pathway past the chairs in the living room, my foot found itself suddenly wedged under her, and my weight flying over her, as I crashed onto one knee and hurt my foot to the point that I thought it might be broken.

As I lay on my floor moaning in agony and unable to move, unsure of just which hurt the most…my knee or my foot…I was once more acutely aware of just how fragile is my existence, and just how much I am alone.

It took many moments to get up off the floor, and more still, to get ice, a towel, and a compression bandage to ward off the swelling that was surely to come.  I hobbled from room to room attempting to secure the necessary items, and to get my foot raised above my heart so that the injury would not travel the darkest path, and allow unnecessary swelling to cause yet more pain.

The pain was acute, severe, and demanding.

It coursed up my calf, married the still throbbing pain in my knee, and wound itself around the nerves in my brain stem.  My entire life’s awareness localized itself around this – my-right-sided-lower-limb – as my nervous system communicated the depth of the insult to my brain, which carried it on and into my consciousness.

I currently make my living doing a fairly low paying straight commission job, which cannot be accomplished by gimping from here to there, as it is quite physically demanding, and it was immediately apparent that I would not be capable of working the upcoming schedule that would start tomorrow, the Monday of my work week.

Thus as I wrapped my foot, positioned the ice pack, and lay down to elevate the limb… I realized that this fall would cost me a good deal more than mere pain…it would cost me hard dollars as well.

But here is why this inglorious fall, tripping over my old and deaf dog, merits an essay.  It did not cost me any amount of suffering what-so-ever.  Not even one tiny smidgen…

And here, right here, is the measure of my life.

I have not achieved, at least in any sustainable way, anything that I once thought was vitally important.  Not even one of the things that was depicted on my “vision board”, scheduled on my bucket list, or written down on my goal sheets, has come to pass for very long.

That is, I-suppose-in-part, because I have spent my life doing what my Teacher once called “Grazing”.

He would often provide lessons that underscored the difference between achieving in the outer world, and growing in the inner.  As an example, he would affirm that if you had an outer goal to visit, let’s say Los Angles, then you would follow a 1-2-3 linear pathway to arrive there.  Maps would be needed, the car’s tires checked, gas procured, the paper delivery stopped, and any number of other small details would have to be accomplished in a quite literal and linear process.

On the other hand, if your “goal” were to bring about inner peace, the end of resentment, constant contact with the deeper realms, and the end of suffering…then…”grazing” would have to be your mainstay.

Grazing was the name he gave to a non-linear, non-sequential, utterly uncontrollable, and entirely grace driven process, by which life takes you where you need to be, in order to deliver you to the deeper aspects of yourself, and the freedom that lies at the core of who you are.

He depicted it by use of a simple story of how a horse in a sunny field of grass will begin its day reaching for the nearest plump tuft of green, and having munched it down to the earth, will move on to the next closest one, having no more guidance than that next clump within its reach.  In this manner, the horse may travel great distances, over much terrain, arriving at a place that is entirely unknowable. 

But… arriving there… fed, nourished, content, and complete.

I had a deep and instant recognition of this simple story.

It hummed within me, precisely because it was the first “authority” figure that had ever approved of the strange method and mode of travel, that I have spent my entire life being guided by.

I have never had an outer plan.  I travel by the light of a compass only I carry, but oddly cannot even see.  I am jostled along by the stream, rarely ever inquiring where it is going, but rather following its curves, twists and turns, with ever increasing depths of trust and contentment.

And now, I have come to the place where real, immediate, and direct pain, produces no suffering at all.

I did not curse the dog for being stupid enough to lie down directly in the pathway.  I did not bemoan the injury, or tell myself a story about how it should not have happened, even though it is severe enough that it may require more than mere time to heal.  I did not shake my fist at the fact that there was no one available to help me up from the floor, or to bandage the hurt foot for me.  I did not look to tomorrow, and wonder how I will recover financially from the loss of income.  I did not weep the acid filled tears of remorse, though I did cry a valley of cleansing tears, which slowly helped the pain to find its way out of my body.

There will be no rewards for this achievement, of the separation of pain from suffering.

No one will beat a path to my door, or provide a golden statuette.  There will be no songs sung, or marches marched.  No flags lowered out of respect, or finish line tape snapped, as I make my way over the line drawn on the asphalt. 

Only I will partake of the sweetness of this victory.  Only I will know how deep the river runs…

More than five decades of grazing have brought me to this astoundingly simple, startlingly brave, devastatingly clear, moment-out-of-time.  When I can fully embrace the shockingly fragile nature of my daily life… and allow its moments to fill me… in equal measure with pain, grace, and gratitude.

Adayre R. Miller

2/11/12