Doctortayria's Blog

Yesterday I wrote of experiencing the symptoms of a disease, today all day I have been experiencing the gift that I believe any disease has to offer, a heart more open to others in the world. In working with clients, in listening to the news, in receiving a phone call regarding a horrible event in the life of some very good friends, my whole body feels sensitized to deeper and stronger feelings of empathy and love. On an average day news and stories we hear can feel like abstractions, like reading a novel, something at a distance from us, until we are cracked open. I think our ailments often come as angels, to open us up. Life rushes in. I am grateful for anything that provides such fullness of life.

A wonderful friend from Asheville, Maureen McDonnell, has just started a new business doing that which she calls “fluffing.” She comes into a a home that invites her for the purpose of utilizing her gift of amazing vision and helps rearrange furniture and the stuff in the environment. She spent the last 36 or so hours here on a visit. I asked her thoughts, and with the fortification of a little wine and a lot of enthusiasm it was as if Merlin the magician had whisked through the house with his magic wand, or maybe one of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty went bippety boppety boo. We disassembled most of every arrangement of furniture and stuff in the major living area of my house and reassembled it according to her felt sense, her eye and intuitions about beauty, creating flow, opening blockages. She pulled art I have collected from all over the world, pieces I had allowed to fade into the woodwork, and placed them in ways that feature them, suddenly they seem to be alive and shining.

I think often about Buckminster Fuller’s explanation regarding the potential of the geodesic dome as a living space. He said that as humans we cannot think correctly in square spaces, as this shape does not exist in nature. He believed our thoughts will move in harmony with nature only when we live in spaces that reflect shapes that exist in the natural world. I reflect upon and puzzle over this often.

The change in the geometries and flows in my own household feel like magic. Even my little dog, who had stopped making any noticeable sounds since he turned deaf, has started miraculously barking again! Magic. Everything feels different. The impact of living spaces upon all of our internal operations may be a mystery we have yet to explore with more awareness and attention. Feng Shui certainly offers the science of it, but there is more to be said, more experimentation to be made, more stories to be told. I feel it.

Just sat for a little time at my 21-day special altar and felt a soft mountain breeze blow not on me but through me, as if blowing through a reed dusting out old thoughts and perceptions, clearing and emptying, making way for something new life, something different, something more, something less. Recently I read an aphorism from Eastern philosophy that said when all is said and done, at the end of life, God will ask two questions: how well did you love? and how well did you let go?

At a point of re-evaluating everything in life I know I must let go of something. It takes humility.

I had a wonderful conversation today with a dear friend who has just written a piece about recovering “Jesus” out of the debris of a lifetime of having related to him in various ways and forgotten or lost touch with him during disillusionments with religion. Reading his writing and hearing him talk reminded me sharply of the moment when my relationship to Jesus shifted irrevocably and wonderfully. It literally took place in a moment’s time.

My ex-husband and I had traveled to Israel on a pilgrimage to visit sites related to the life of Jesus – Bethlehem, the Sea of Galilee, Jerusalem. I was thrilled to the core to be there, I felt it all deeply and profoundly. The stories in the New Testament came vividly alive for me.  A Mormon guide took us to a few sites around Jerusalem. We arrived at the place where they honor the Last Supper – the last evening of Jesus’ life on earth, when he knew that he was about to be arrested and crucified. He had gathered his 12 disciples to have a last meal with them somewhere in the vicinity of this room in which we stood, and it would have looked something like where we were. The 13 of them broke bread and drank wine. Jesus said to them, “Do this in remembrance of me.” I was in tears thinking of it. Then our guide said, “And that is when he established the priesthood.”

Excuse me? Press pause. Where did you get that? Jesus was having a last meal with his closest followers while grieving, ate bread and drank wine with them, said that he wanted them to do the same while remembering him —  and you get a priesthood out of that?

At that moment human interpretations regarding Jesus severed from the Jesus that felt so alive and throbbing in my fleshy heart. I think, truth be told, it was the moment when religion, which is a man-made thing, died in me. What was left was a living thing, strongly felt and interpreted in my personal heart. All other impositions of translation faded away like watching a ship sink, like Orpheus watching Eurydice fade back to the underworld.

Since that moment, the personal relationship I have had with this figure Jesus has since been just that, personal – sweet and powerful, precious and priceless, and just between me and him. I trust it. I don’t trust anyone else’s interpretations of what it should be any more than I would trust someone else telling me how to relate to the most private things in my life.

This is a story worth telling, I suppose. I’m grateful to my friend for reminding me of it.

It is the New Moon in Cancer today, the Apple Moon in the Celtic Calendar. I went to my apple tree to pick one, eat half and offer the other half to the goddess of love, Aphrodite, as it is one of her sacred symbols. Thus I begin a 21-day ritual I have been planning for clearing out the old and inviting in the new. Clearing clutter and eating mostly fruits and vegetables are part of the plan. Apple Moon blessings to ye.

I begin to understand that every single moment, every day, every experience is moving us closer to the core. To the core of self, universe, everything. The paradox is that the universe is expanding as we speak, and yet as it expands it is moving us closer in.

I remember one evening some years ago when I was at the dinner table with a group of academic friends, and each were talking, bantering, about their interests, in this case the patterns of thought through the ages of philosophers and poets – the breakthroughs, the times when everything changed, the ones that inspired and moved them most and for what reasons. I loved hearing their love, interest and enthusiasm. And I was intrigued to remember on this occasion a conversation I had heard in the midst of baseball enthusiasts, who talked about the history of the game, the moments when it all changed, the times that thrilled and moved them personally and for what reasons. I thought, “Ok, I think I get this. It isn’t about the subject we’re talking about, it is about people wanting to connect, through the heart, to say what they care about and share it with others. It really doesn’t matter whether it is philosophy and poetry, baseball, football, science, religion, music, opera, painting. The main point is that people love to connect with others through the heart and share what they care about.”

Tonight I was with a group of friends on the mountain who were sharing stories and histories of these parts, the people involved, the deep story of Appalachia. These thoughts came back to me. It really doesn’t matter what subject we talk about, it is the urge for connection through the heart that motivates people’s drive in these conversations. It is the quality of heart with which people enter into any of them that matter to the others or themselves. It isn’t topical, it is feeling and experiential. I think there is a fascinating truth in this.