Moved by the World I
Home, beyond where the road ends, and back again
I am moved to tears, to anger, frustration, hopelessness, helplessness. I am moved to pride, appreciation, laughter, compassion, peace. I am moved to action in many ways, primarily to write.
I’ve resisted the world a lot. I haven’t really liked a lot about “the way things are” and the way things are done. I’ve been deeply disillusioned by most institutions. Most of the payoffs of success in this world are not all that enticing to me. The world, I should explain, is the world of human beings distinct from the planet. I made that distinction quite awhile back because my relationship with nature, our planetary home, has been one of connection, of comfort, nurturance and care.
When I was a child in less than optimal life circumstances, meaning my home environment, my safe haven and refuge was in the woods around my house. I was outside exploring, adventuring, imagining, being myself. Yes, I was alone out there playing, enjoying life safe from harms.
It’s a place I felt connected. There were a few places in the forest that literally comforted me. At the side of the house there was a mighty oak. Beside it and under it’s branches was a little pine tree about my height. These trees were my friends and allies, companions and comforters. I related to the little pine as me, and the mighty oak as a benevolent steady presence, big, solid, strong. Sitting with my back against the big old oak, I had a view of the front yard and the driveway down to the road. It was there I sat deriving comfort when my older brother left home for the last time. He and my father were having a big fight which is I why went outside, why I went to my comfort spot. They’d had fights before. My brother decked my father one time and his black eye the next day looked the same as the steak he put on it. That day, I could tell by the set of my brother’s shoulders, the way he walked, that he wasn’t coming back.
Among the stories of my childhood is what is called the foundling myth. A very famous one is that of Moses. Mine involved Chief Katonah. I grew up in the countryside near a town called Katonah in New York. The story went that Chief Katonah, for whom the town was named, had dropped me off on the back doorstep of our house. I had two names that fit that, “gigglywachemmatch” and “gobbledygots.” I have no clue how those two came to pass.
This myth was followed by this warning, “If you’re not a good girl, we’ll send you back to the Indians.” My father had a road picked out on the way to town, far enough away from our place, that I hadn’t explored that far. It was a straight tree-lined dirt road that went far back and disappeared into the woods. It was a good candidate to be the one that would lead back to the “Indians.” Sometimes I imagined it. Can you? Being taken down that long road into the deep woods beyond civilization and left there, as you’d been left on the back doorstep before? Yes, abandonment and exile have been the soul’s work this lifetime.
My father would have a twinkle in his eye now and then. His humor was very dry, so you had to really pay attention to subtle clues that he was joking. He probably didn’t realize the degree to which children believe stories. In a child’s imagination, it’s a very real experience. It also had to do with a way of deflecting his own pain and difficulty dealing with the death of my mother. I can only remember one or maybe two occasions when he spoke to me of her.
My play outside involved being Indian-like at times. It was the 50’s and we had a tv and westerns were watched. Annie Oakley was a hero. So I had some ideas about what being a so-called Indian was like. I tanned easily and had long very dark brown hair I wore in braids most of the time. Among my favorite things was walking without making a sound, no twig snapping, not disturbing anything. I was attuned to the environment. I’d notice when birds, animals and insects made or stopped making sounds. I’d freeze and stay still until everything returned to normal. It involved very slow movement with very careful foot placement. Decades, later in my explorations in wisdom traditions, I discovered what a great spiritual practice that is. Thich Nhat Hanh would’ve appreciated it.
My relationship with the planet differs greatly from my relationship with the world, which is undergoing a transformation. It is definitely related to the transformation of my consciousness in regard to the holding environment of my childhood. We tend to project our childhood environment on the world.
When I was around 7, or 8 my attitude changed. Not outwardly, mind you, that would’ve been far too risky, but inwardly. I had fictional heroes by then. By then, after my big brother left, there wasn’t anyone around to stop the violence. I’d called the cops in by then. By then, my attitude was “go ahead, send me back to the Indians — it’s gotta be better than this!” I would never dare allow that attitude to surface in any way, far too dangerous to be rebellious. I didn’t realize that those Indians were long gone. I never found them no matter how deeply in the woods I went. Never caught sight of one. They hide well, though. They disappear into the environment and earth. They can even hide in plain sight.
In my older youthful years, my disillusionment with the world, government, religion, in particular, and my dismay about the state of the world was getting pretty fixed. It took a long time to realize it wasn’t different than my feelings and attitudes about my home.
Yet somehow, by grace and hard work, I’ve travelled down that mysterious road “to the Indians” that seemed to have no end. I’ve been given to explore deeper in to the great beyond that is within us. My return to the world has a far deeper realization about what is going on in this wild and messed up place our world appears to be. Atrocities still abound, in homes, among citizens of the same country, and between nation states. Yet there is something wild and real, of nature and our true nature alive and well in our world.
Stay tuned for the further adventures of “Moved by the World II and III.” In these I’ll describe the journey that left our uncivil civilization behind, going where “no one has gone before” in my own way, and my return to Being in the world but not of it, an on-going exploration. Meantime, May Peace Be among all Being of this world.