Someone said to me this weekend, “How sad you have this weakness.” He was speaking to an aspect of my physical being, a limitation in the form of Parkinson’s.
I smiled gently and offered in return. “To some, a weakness. To others, a blessing.”
How could I expect him to know the depths of my journey? To understand the pace by which awareness unfolds?
“Bring your mind to one point and wait for grace…” I had been reminded of these words once shared by Swami Chidananda. He was speaking to the process of external reflection; of restoring our spiritual sovereignty.
“Bring your mind to one point and wait for grace. Love is less doing and more being. There is no healing balm better than Silence for those persons who have a wounded heart.”
I had been studying for years, trying my best to reconcile fear through application of centuries-old spiritual text, exhaustive meditative techniques, and rigorous self guided introspection. Though, to no avail. In fact, it seemed the more I ‘tried‘ the more I ‘failed.’
I wanted to return to a self that had already been. Meanwhile, longing kept me tethered to this ‘imperfect’ state of being. One leg crossing, as the other steadied. How could I find joy in a place of such unsettledness?
I remember the day of my diagnosis. I returned home, gathered the mail…force my way through dinner preparations.
And, then?
Those proverbial walls came crashing in. I found a quiet space in the back corner of my closet, held a pillow to my face and cried. I cried thinking of what I ‘once was’. I cried thinking of that which ‘could never be.’ I cried wondering what others might think. I cried thinking of the magnitude of such a change.
But then, there was stillness. The light once flooding my room, retreating to gentle grace. When I had nothing left – no thought, no fight – it was there. A wisdom I’d sought for years, though never fully knew.
“You are not this body,” the words resonated deeply, carrying with them a sense of calm. “You are not your future, nor the limitations of past. Rather, you are everything, all at once. Boundless and everlasting.”
They say, breath is the mediator between body and mind. And, never had I known such a closeness to mine.
“I am the rest between two notes,” Rilke once shared. “which are somehow always in discord because Death’s note wants to climb over—but in the dark interval, reconciled, they stay there trembling. And the song goes on, beautiful.”
As I stood before this gentleman, I smiled. To some, a weakness. Though, to me — the most beautiful blessing.
For, in seizing this body, it has freed my soul.
“And the song goes on, beautiful..”
In peace, my loves…
Namaste <3
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