As The Wave Returns Home To The Shore

[This is an email to my teacher.]

Thank you so much for your call. I have been difficult to get a hold of this week - and I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you have been calling. Thank you so much!

Such a strange coincidence of timing (if you believe in coincidences I suppose). I was on the phone with a friend when you called. I recognized your number, but could not remember to whom it belonged.

I was sharing with my friend some scripture I had read early yesterday that had touched me deeply. And at almost precisely the moment your call arrived, I had unexpectedly begun to weep.

Do not worry. I do not believe it was sadness. Although it did not ever feel like sadness the fact that I was weeping and especially that the "imagery" I was "seeing" seemed somewhat nihilistic I did not let myself go into the experience very far until much later in the evening.

I didn't put my friend on hold when you called because we were in the middle of that, although I didn't realize at that moment how significant the impact of what was beginning would be. I was just aware that the scripture was touching me more deeply as I spoke it out loud and shared it. I didn't sob or anything, and at that point, it was mostly just tears coming.

Not many minutes later, the call ended. I had some errands I wanted to run before the end of the day, and so I hurried out before checking messages.

I won't try to explain it here - or I will try not to try! I discussed it later last night with my friend and although I think I managed to communicate what I was feeling, and then actually did cry, I don't fully understand what was happening.

I walked through the ravine and down the stairs by Casa Loma to the store. And there I was a little surprised to find myself still weeping. The feelings I was walking through were joy, relief, release, love, praise. At least I think that is what I was feeling. My heart felt nothing like sadness or depression. My mind was afraid however, because I did not have an external reference point - I have recently gone into remission from depression, I was weeping and I was experiencing a fairly clear "image": that of being a great, powerful wave of water crashing and breaking against a greater, solid rock and then being gone. A sense of falling to my knees before God in surrender, prostration. Or perhaps an urge to do so.

And so, out of respect (not quite fear) of depression, I chose to limit my indulgence in whatever this experience was, in case it was sadness or specifically depression in disguise. I put it down and went back to the moment and doing my errands.

Upon reaching the ravine on my way home, I was weeping again. Although it was silent, it was enough that I could feel that my eyes must be red and that my speech would be affected if I were to run into a neighbour. I did not wish to discuss this with a simple acquaintance or stranger and I did not want to lie about my tears. So I tried to shut it up somewhere until I could get into my apartment.

It must have been about 9pm, or getting close to it. I decided that I had best call someone. Not now out of fear - well not totally anyway. I wanted to let myself go into what was happening, but was feeling that "losing myself" feeling, and kinda wanted someone to know what was happening, just in case.

I was glad that I did. I told my friend (name omitted) immediately that I did not think I was depressed, but I was going through something "rough". I knew I would frighten him and I did at the beginning. As soon as I began to express what was happening the weeping burst through and I began to cry openly and it was very hard to speak. Triton, my dog, became agitated and jumped up on the bed (which he is still terrified of jumping up on) and began to lick at my face and then press his head into my neck to comfort me. But giving into the tears, the fear left. Giving into the tears I gave into something else.

Hehe, I said I wouldn't try to explain, and after a couple of pages, here is the part I won't try to explain - but only give you this. Which is right now most of what I have.

This image of the crashing wave is not new to me - although I do not know it's origin. It feels now like it might be a half-forgotten psalm or poem or song (are those all the same thing?) I have wept over this image before, many times during my life - but then it was a sadness, a longing, a desire for the poem to complete. A longing to crash upon the rock and rest.

This is the half-remembered part:

I break against your rocky shore and cease to be.
I know you do not weep for me.
The water that streams down your face is not me,
Is not your tears, but mine.
And they are not tears of sadness but tears of joy,
The joy of coming home at last.

This next is from a hymn you may remember (I paraphrase from This Little Light of Mine):

I long to put down my sword and shield and step into the river.

I think the hymn refers to the river Jordan, to Jesus' baptism. And of course it is the words of God at Jesus' baptism that I associated with my earlier experience this Spring (which I have come to think of as an Epiphany). See Be Still and Know That I Am God.

And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Mark 1:11)

And according to Christian tradition when you are immersed in the river Jordan in baptism, you die to yourself and cease to be. A new man or woman rises from the water - a new man or woman in Christ.

Paul says (Galatians 2:20):

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I will call you this morning in a short while and pray that I do not wake or disturb you. I think I am fine, although a little shaken. Do not worry if we cannot speak this weekend. I am OK.

Now here are some other sacred writings that are on my heart right now. You do not need to read them unless you feel like doing so. I read them and type them out now and tears flow freely. I have waited so long, aching to hear words that have been right here in front of me. Today I feel as though I read them for the first time. Now instead of being only beautiful words, they are keys to the chains that bind.

Light, love and gassho,
Teo

This from Rumi:

[For those who might not know, Rumi was the mystic Sufi teacher and poet who founded the order of Whirling Dervishes. His writings are honoured within the Sufi and many of the Islamic traditions. Sufism is considered to be a mystic branch of Islam, although of course there is controversy.]

The lover asked the beloved:
Do you love yourself more than you love me?
The lover replied: I have died to myself and I live for you.
I have disappeared to myself and my attributes;
I am present only for you.
I have forgotten all my learnings,
But from knowing you I have become a scholar.
I have lost all my strength
But, from your power, I am able.

I love myself. I love you.
I love you. I love myself.

I am your lover, come to my side.
I will open the gate to your love.
Come settle with me. Let us be neighbours to the stars.

You have been hiding so long, endlessly drifting in the sea of my love
Even so, you have always been connected to me - concealed, revealed, in the known, in the unmanifest.

I am life itself.
You have been a prisoner in a little pond.
I am the ocean and it's turbulent flood.
Come merge with me. Leave this world of yours.
Be with me. I will open the gate to your love.

I desire you more than food or drink.
My body,my senses, my mind hunger for your taste.
I can sense your presence with my heart,
Although you belong to all the world,
I wait in silent passion for one gesture, one glance --- from you.

And this from the Song of Solomon (rarely referenced in the Catholic tradition I think because of its open sexuality, but right there in the Catholic Bible toward the end of the Old Testament).

[In the preceding verses, King Solomon, passing one of the vineyards in his kingdom in procession, notices a young woman labouring in the fields. When the woman feels the king's eyes upon her she becomes ashamed. She is a labourer and not a "noble" and does not believe herself to be worthy of the king's attention. Sensing this, the King later returns to the vineyard, disguised as a shepherd in order to court his beloved, the woman who would become his first bride.]

Song of Solomon (sometimes Song of Songs) 2:10-15
My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice;
for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.