“Walk on air against your better judgment”*
This piece was penned on Sunday December 22nd, the day I thought was Winter Solstice but it wasn’t. That has been a bit of a theme for me this past year; things I thought were or would be, never materialized. I should not be surprised, yet I almost always am. Sometimes stunned or even shocked. The Rumi poem below, found me in the 1990’s, yet I keep forgetting its wisdom:
Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
Chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
And end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
And fall in.
I should be suspicious
Of what I want.
What Rumi doesn’t address in this poem is exactly who is the “I” here. The Plotter, Shooter, Digger etc? I believe that “I” is centered in our strategic powers (the commander of that separate sense of self), we adults possess, though we did not at birth. Our controller/planner-in-chief is Rumi’s “I”. BUT is that “I” really all of us? Is this all we truly are?
I spent a week with my sister. Her youngest grandson spent the day with us on New Year’s Eve. It is unmistakable that there is a clear and a singular intelligence in this 10 month old. This is who I believe we each are, a singular intelligence.. This is who will influence everything throughout our entire lives either with our awareness and support or without it. "The Our awareness” in that last sentence is that “I”, that as adults we typically over-identify with. It is the evaluator of all we do, it is the voice that seems to weigh in on all things with likes and dislikes, acceptance/rejection, permission or fears. And this is NOT that intelligence I see in my sister’s sweet 10 month old grandson. That singular intelligence is our “experiencer-in-chief” and possesses a remarkable intelligence of its own.
The title of this essay “walk on air against your better judgment” is a line from the Seamus Heaney poem Gravel Walks. It came to my attention reading an essay in the Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan about her family’s relationship with him, this famous Irish Pulitzer Prize winning poet. That line took hold of me and has not let me go and so I have taken to my pen to wrestle it.
On Solstice Eve (the real one) at our annual dinner party with beloved friends the question was posed: “So how are you thinking about the next four years, the President elect’s return to office and power? “ My first thought came as always from my “I”, who is also my protector-in-chief. It whispered, remember he said “I am your retribution” on the campaign trail. The next morning however, reading Caitlin Flanagan’s essay, Seamus Heaney, My father & Me I found the famous poet’s counterpoint to my fear and anxiety. Seamus wrote:
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
It takes me aback. “So, walk on air against your better judgement” Oh I long to believe in the great sea-change on the other side of revenge and that this further shore is indeed reachable from where I am today. But to believe in this I must also walk on air against my better judgment. Which from all accounts the famous poet did throughout his life. Yet, my “I” cautions. It suggests that If I hope, I will be deeply disappointed if a 2nd term for the President elect is as bad or worse than the first. These lines found me because I knew I had not offered much of a response to the query from our Solstice Celebration, because of course I was of two minds. One anxious and fearful and one as hopeful and curious as that 10 month old.
By now, you may have guessed that I voted for Kamala Harris and if you know me personally you also know that revenge and retribution, those all too human impulses are unthinkable for me, (I credit 12 years of Catholic school for this.) As a small school girl I believed revenge was an offense against a loving God, the supreme unconditionally loving Being. I couldn’t square that God with one who mets out punishment and retribution. I sensed even then that to close one’s heart to someone else’s struggles and suffering was a kind of violence to one’s self. Our souls I was taught and still believe, dwell in the eternal, or to quote the Mystic poet Rumi again, “in the field out beyond wrong doing and right doing.” This is the field my experiencer-in-chief and that 10 month old sweet boy reside. Your experiencer-in-chief does too. That part of us is focused on this moment, and totally present to our experience. That other part the “I” is focused on safety and protection so the threat of retribution and revenge, are especially frightening to it. Especially if it has been shame, belittlement or trauma.
It would seem I have stumbled across my answer to my friend’s query from solstice eve: I will continue to “hope for the great sea-change on the far side of revenge. And to believe that further shore is reachable from here.”
I won’t however, attach a time line. I will “Walk on air against my better judgment.” Which for me entails the death of my dream of a President Kamala Harris. This to me is what walking on air requires ~ it of course is an extraordinary act of faith and humility. Humility in that I must surrender the idea that I know what is best, and faith in that further shore, where miracles, cures and healing wells reside.
Caitlin Flanagan whose recent article, Seamus Heaney, My father & Me brought Heaney’s stunning words to me, says in her essay “We can’t escape losing the people we love and need most. Each death has to be countenanced as a fact, squared away in the record books.” Yes, the death of the dream of saying Madame President is fact. A man whose heart I fear, will assume our country’s highest office in less than a month. But Cailtin goes on ..”But there are people so well known to us, so loved, (for me, my country) that death is one more thing that can be turned to air.
I remember beginning a conversation with my beloved father days after his death (over 20 years ago). Occasionally I still turn to him, and the thoughts and feelings that spring immediately following my queries of him do offer proof that our deep and abiding loves, once the ground of our being shape shift to the air beneath our wings. What happens if I refuse to give to give up hope? What happens if instead I choose to walk on air against my better judgment?
I notice as I pen these words something in my heart pops its head up, it feels like curiosity? Or Wonder? How will I do this? What might emerge? This wonder is filled with innocence, with truly knowing that there may yet be a happy enmding, a more perfect union for the United States, maybe not in the next 4 years, my judgment cautions, but I am walking on the air of “no-one, maybe least of all this next President knows what will come to meet him.” We are all playing a part in the unfolding of the play that is our country’s evolution, its story. The planner-in-chief part of me, that “I” is the one that makes predictions about things not yet here, but the experiencer-in-chief part of me, might be able to stay in the present (like the Lost Horse, Chinese folk tale below).
The ancient Chinese story of The Lost Horse:
A man who lived on the northern frontier of China was skilled in interpreting events. One day, for no reason, his horse ran away to the nomads across the border. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?" Some months later his horse returned, bringing a splendid nomad stallion. Everyone congratulated him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a disaster?" Their household was richer by a fine horse, which his son loved to ride. One day he fell and broke his hip. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, "What makes you so sure this isn't a blessing?"
A year later the nomads came in force across the border, and every able-bodied man took his bow and went into battle. The Chinese frontiersmen lost nine of every ten men. Only because the son was lame did the father and son survive to take care of each other. Truly, blessing turns to disaster, and disaster to blessing: the changes have no end, nor can the mystery be fathomed.
The Lost Horse, Chinese Folktale.
As told by Ellen J. Langer, in" The Power of Mindful Learning," Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, page 99-100. (1997).
For me “walking on air” is acknowledging for each action this next administration takes I can only know the result in this moment. I cannot know for certain the long term impacts, nor can the incoming administration. This is quite a discipline for me to engage. As the lovely ideator that I am, I am often ahead of “now” and these next four years and hopefully well beyond I can apprentice myself to the practice of choosing a response to the events coming toward me that is grounded in a hope for a great sea-change. I can believe in that further shore.
*Seamus Heaney from the poem Gravel Walks
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