She was just coming out of the door to the café as I was going in. There was a concrete planter of hydrangea at our feet as Gangamata, one of our spiritual directors, met my eyes with her deep and warm gaze. “Happy birthday to you,” she began to sing, “happy birthday to you. Master’s blessings on you!” “I have everything I could wish for here,” I replied, beaming. We held hands quietly for a moments and then parted ways. As I passed inside onto the landing I saw Beth in the coat room and moved to greet her. She had only been back a few days from her cross-country drive and I was eager to reconnect. “How are you?” she asked, eyes sparkling with her signature abundance. “I was feeling down,” she shared, “and then I saw you through the window talking with Gangamata. Your face was so beatific, it made me feel I could go on.” I felt both moved to have so inspired her, and surprised because of the pain I was carrying. “You seem a bit more stressed than when I left,” she added and wave of shame passed over me at the thought that I had somehow failed to manage my burdens gracefully. The past week had been uniquely trying, and despite how much I needed a friend, there was far more than I could go into in the coat room, guests passing through and kitchen tasks beckoning.
There is something magical that happens here at Ananda Laurelwood when our small collection of residents are asked to do what seems impossible. There was the time we created an ad hoc assembly line to fill, heat, and serve 100 quesadillas in under 45 minutes. There was the time seven of us descended on the dish room and café and completed the clean-up in record time so we could all attend a class. And this wedding weekend was no exception. Our full-time healer was event manager and delegated out dozens of tasks so each of us had a vital role. The kitchen was crammed with people assembling tea sandwiches, slicing veggies, frosting cupcakes, arranging flowers, making rice and dahl for lunch, and brewing tea for each other while the sound of devotional chanting and light conversation drifted through. Sometimes I feel deliciously lost in the communal hive here, abuzz with something not unlike the sensation of devotional harmonies where I cannot tell my voice apart from the rest or those deep morning meditations when I see my prayers drift upward with everyone else’s.
But some days are different. Some days, I carry a secret pain nursed with shame, and all I feel is twisted and out-of-sync. I struggle to keep my spirits up and mind focused, but I am blinded by all the ways people are doing things wrong, all the ways I am failing to measure up to their stamina and cheerfulness, and I slip away to a meditation room and cry at Master’s feet, berating myself for my ambivalent devotion and drying my eyes to slip back into the throng before anyone notices I am gone. On those days, I believe I am doing the right thing. I believe I am placing my pain where it belongs, keeping my chin up to support my community, deepening my relationship with the only power that can really fulfill me. But on days like yesterday, after a week of withdrawal over the real ashes of my fantasy relationship, after my very first and wholly thrilling theatrical performance, after two full days of kitchen prep including 250 thumbprint cookies, 100 sandwiches, and 27 cups of buttercream frosting, and after seeing the two other young women here walk arm-in-arm in a budding friendship that has eluded me, I caved and fled. After weeks of preparation, I missed the reception, the service, and the Sunday brunch. I was holed up in my room crying, watching reruns of Nature, and trying to convince myself I wasn’t hungry because I wouldn’t risk venturing out and having to look anyone in the face.
Several friends have told me it seems like I’m losing ground here; that my self-love and confidence are not as strong as they used to be. This worries me, because I know they love me and from a distance can perhaps see me more clearly than I see myself. I imagine with this most recent story of drama and tears, they will feel concerned again. Isn’t a spiritual community supposed to be nurturing? Aren’t I supposed to feel stronger, clearer, and more radiant? These are the questions that leave me researching flights abroad, scanning job listings, and plotting how I can get my pilgrimage payment refunded. But where else would I go? It is easier for me to come up with ideas of places to visit than to answer the deeper question of where in the world I could go to avoid ever feeling this way again. I planned a tour abroad partly so that I would not be burdened by the twin responsibilities of productivity and intimate relationship, but a deeper part of me clung to this place because it understood my ultimate need: to be free – most essentially of the inner things that hold me back.
After a day in my room, I began to feel myself spiraling deeper into shame. The disappointment I felt over missing the festivities was neutralized by feeling rejuvenated by solitude, rest, and emotional catharsis. But I was feeling increasingly nervous that the community would be upset with me for not attending the reception, abandoning my clean-up duties, passing an intern tour off on another resident, and slinking in and out of the café for breakfast without making eye contact. I felt I did the best thing for myself at the time, but I feared it would result in rejection and resentment. As the scenario in my mind became more desperate, I knew I needed to venture out and face reality, whatever it held. I took a book, a mug of tea, and a determination to look everyone in the eye, greet them, own my absence, and share my gratitude. What I got was a warm and understanding stream of “Where have you been?”, “Sometimes we’ve just had enough and need to step away”, and “You saw the tables decorated, and that was enough.” Far from the judgment I expected, I received nothing but acceptance of my limitations. And those I had the courage to share my shame with assured me I could cry with them anytime. One friend I have bonded with recently held me tight, told me I was like a little sister to him, and thanked me for sharing a piece of my heart.
How is it that I have come to believe that the full spectrum of my feelings have no place here? I hear about the value of equanimity, of moderation, of selfless service, and there are certainly people here who squirm when asked to share personally or interrupt the flow when things get emotionally intense. But they are by no means representative of the whole. There I was too weak to push through my fatigue and heart-ache, and I received tremendous empathy and more than a handful of invitations to show up more authentically next time. I have learned how to trust a friend or two here and there, and enjoyed deep healing from those relationships, but to admit that I might be able to trust an entire community? That’s an awful lot to ask of the little one at my core who, despite plenty of experiences to the contrary, is still trying to figure out all the rules and follow them to the letter so she will be loved.
I sat on the couch with our healer, now blissfully relieved of her wedding planning, drinking my tea and telling her about my concern that I am losing ground here. She asks me to picture an ant crawling through the eye of a needle. “You get your head through. And then your heart,” she explains. “But then you get stuck. That last little bit needs to come through and it’s all about doing things differently, right now.” She turned me towards all the things I am doing well: recognizing so much sooner that this relationship that just ended was wrong for me, letting go of the urge to care-take him even though I see him daily, and honoring what I know is true regardless of the consequences. “The moment I stopped caring what other people thought of me,” she added warmly, “was the day I realized how much Divine Mother loves me.” She reminded me again that no matter where I go, I will take myself, and that at least here I am safe, and loved.
After dinner, I pulled Gangamata aside to thank her for sharing her song with me the day before and to tell her that her warmth had been a high point for me in a difficult day. I revealed that my shame had sent me into hiding and left me questioning this community and the pilgrimage. She assured me gently that this community is all about a give and take; that in India we will all be pushed to our limits and have the opportunity to care for each other. My throat caught as I replied, “These can be just words, but I am starting to see that people here live by them. It is really hard to trust. Why am I so scared?”
Because I was the girl who was teased, punished for standing up for herself, left out of the popular clichés, misunderstood no matter how pure my intentions. I always managed to find a best friend who struggled as I did, but the classroom, the school, the family, and the workplace were arenas where I had to fight for love with whatever inadequate tools I had. These things take time to heal. They take patience. They take staying put. And they take speaking out and being seen, even when every inch of me is convinced everyone will turn their backs. Perhaps I do not have a best friend right now because it is time for me to allow a community to forgive, accept, and love me just as I am; and perhaps because this special flavor of loneliness leaves me hungry for inner solace. Searching there, one day I may even be blessed with my own experience of Divine Mother’s perfect and inexhaustible love and finally get my backside through the eye of that needle.
Nancy
“Walk boldly through your life with an open, broken heart.”—Joanna Macy
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