Doctortayria's Blog

I remember regularly Buckminster Fuller’s words that if everyone would make a commitment to start telling always and only the truth, the problems of the world would be cleared up swiftly. Imagine. I just saw a movie that showed the worst case scenarios with plots of politics, passions, failing businesses all trying desperately to protect their personal interests over the interest truth and the wake of destruction it leaves; but in our everyday lives it is a challenge for everyone of us on our own scale. Truth. It is a relative term, very hard to ever define or nail down, but what if we committed to it above all else in every relationship and in every circumstance? What then? It’s a the most hard thing, but ultimately the only way through I believe.

I saw a YouTube video today that really moves me. Check it out. Type in The Empathic Civilization. It is a brief lecture by Jeremy Rifkin, illustrated in a very creative way, addressing a controversy ubiquitous among us as humans – are we natural amoral competitors, killers and aggressors, or is there inherent morality and goodness at the core of us? I appreciated this argument, and it is really fun to watch. The last statements that he shared I particularly enjoyed given my recent trip to Kenya. Our species was born in Africa. We are all one family, with one set of parents and Africa is our continent of origin. See what you think of what he says.

I slept today all day in a bit of a sick delirium, and as I awakened over and over I was groping for words from a poem in Rilke’s Book of Hours. I am not at home now so I can’t go to my library to find them, as I would have done. The image is of being pressed between rocks in a crevice, and Rilke’s longing-filled prayer that he wants to feel God in that way, pressing in on him. That is what my feeling was all day. When my sister came to check on me I asked her to press down hard with the palms of her hands on my back. That was the closest I could come to satisfying this longing. “God, I want to feel you pressing in on me…” A baby needs swaddling clothes to feel the pressure of love and being cared for. We all need it, to feel God pressing in on us.

I have been living with the vivid memory of abandoned, abused and extremely poor children in Kabira while reintegrating into the privileged world on this continent. I am thinking that no matter where we live, at whatever level of lack or abundance, the need to be loved appears to be the most basic. The little girl who cried on my chest for hours in Kabira cried because she does not feel loved; that was her stated reason. She did not say she cried because of hunger or deprivation which she experiences more than we can even imagine, but because she does not feel loved. I see this need everywhere I look, and observe that it is not unique to any particular circumstance in life.

What occurs to me tonight, as I feel my connection with those children across the globe, is that each human is born knowing that he or she deserves to be loved. It is an imprint at our origins, no matter how life might give us reason to doubt it. That awareness, even though remote to so many, keeps people getting up in the morning and trying again. We each do know, at the deepest level, that love is a birthright. Esther cried with me because she doesn’t feel love in her life, but I don’t believe she would have the energy to cry for it if she didn’t know she deserves it, and that somehow life owes it to her. I am sensing that this pain, longing and awareness is similar for every human. We are imprinted with love and know it is there for us, even as we search like explorers have done for unknown continents. Set the sails, find it. Esther left this impression with me.

Tonight in between fireworks displays from our glass house over the Mississippi River in Iowa, we watched the movie The Last Station about the last years of Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sofya. It is an extraordinary film, very well done. It mostly describes the conflict between Tolstoy’s movement, his “new religion” and values of family, especially his love for his wife. It was not easy for him, nor is it for anyone who loves a cause.

After living passionately nearly 60 years in this world, and having lived the majority of my life in service to principles and ideas maybe best described by Thomas Berry in his book called The Great Work, what this movie about Tolstoy makes me want to say as I am reflecting upon it is this: always chose personal, human love over love of a cause. I speak from personal experience. Before writing this I asked myself, “did Jesus live like that?” since he is the standard I personally hold for my deepest reflections on such questions. I think yes, he did. He chose personal love, love for those he broke bread with and taught to and walked with over love of a religion. Because he loved the people, he defied the religion which excluded them and its hypocritically pious leaders, and he died for it.

But no matter how Jesus’s life is interpreted, I say this for myself. Choose personal, human love over love of a cause. Love incarnated is the love to choose. I stand with this.

After two days of travel without sleep, being sick, and much to process – finally home from Africa I went into my room, pulled all of the shades to sleep all night and most of the next day in a womb-like, cave-like space. I’m going back into it shortly. To integrate the dark continent into a daylight continent in body, psyche and emotion is work. It can’t be done with rational thought. In-dwelling, cave-dwelling, incubation is necessary. I’m doing it.

It took me 48 hours to get from Nairobi back to my mother and sister’s house in Iowa where my dog has been lovingly cared for in my absence. I got a bit sick right before I left and slept only in snatches all during the complicated hours of travel complications, diverted flights and long airport layovers, so most of those hours I was in a semi-delirium. Every time I closed my eyes visions of Africa, African designs, faces, feelings, impressions vividly erupted in the dreamtime state. Now I am home, rooting myself back into this continent and psyche. It’s confusing. Processing and assimilation will take time.

My nephew is here and asked me if there was one time or event there that really rocked my world. My immediate answer was yes, every minute of it. Every single minute rocked my world.

A lovely man who works at the guest house where we stayed named Agre stopped me on my last evening to tell me he wanted to say how much he appreciated that we came. He said most of the world doesn’t come to see what the world is like for those suffering in places like Kibera and that is how it should be, but for those who do come and see and care, he wanted me to know that it really goes a long way. I needed to hear that. I asked, “Really, you do think it goes a long way?” He told me he knows it does. I was so grateful to him for saying that. It definitely goes in all directions, I can tell it has already gone a long distance into me and pray it does so in all the worlds that we touched. It has been an exchange of gorgeous energy, of deep, dark love.

My flight out of Nairobi leaves in a few hours. We have had closing meetings with Agnes and the Drugfighter’s staff, de-briefings with each other and now begin the real assimilation of all that has happened. It has been one of the richest, fullest short periods in my life and I know it will take time to absorb for each of us and for everyone here. More to come. I spread my love between here and there with a full heart.

I have been out of internet access for three days. It might as well have been three months.

We had our last day at the Drugfighter’s School in Kabira. I did group counseling with the children all day, small groups of 5 or 6 at a time, listening to stories that I could never have imagined I would hear in person in my life. A child who gets locked out of his house by his stepfather after his mother disappeared and sleeps standing up in other people’s tiny mud washrooms after dark rather than on the streets of Kabira. He doesn’t eat when school is not in session. A child who came home one day from school to an empty house. His mother was evicted because she couldn’t pay rent, so she took the younger children and left this child, 11, without knowing where they had gone. He hasn’t seen her or heard from her in nearly a year. The “homes” I am talking about are mud huts as tiny as most of our closets, on dirty mud, garbage and sewage strewn paths, with no plumbing or electricity anywhere. I listened to story after story like this from boys and girls of every age. I listened and tried to give courage, admiration, hope for new possibilities if they study, whatever I could think of to say. Looking into the eyes of young children who just want to live life and don’t know how to survive, I will never be able to say what this has meant. The teachers and organizers of the school told me these kids have never had “counseling” before, it’s a new concept. I can only hope that looking into their eyes, listening, caring and saying the few words that I can find will mean something new to them. I feel that it has.

Esther, my little friend who I wrote about on the last blog, who cried on my chest for almost two hours, had continued to cry. Agnes, Drugfighters Founder, brought both of us in to talk together to try to find out how to understand what had touched her. Agnes said she doesn’t like to see a child so sad because it makes her sad! So we talked. We tried to tell Esther how much love there is around her and that she has to let it in. What else can we do? Esther will stay on my heart and mind constantly.

The others in our group work heartfully on their projects all day and have such stories to tell also. The two story dormitory for the children to live in is near completion now; we got a music program from the kids by the end of the day from the amazing music teacher, Nina, who taught them songs on recorder. They were so proud to present. When we left the children made a “tunnel of love” as we walked out. All of them lined up on two sides touching our hands as we walked out. I can never tell you the sensation of the tears that were there, mostly on our side. The children are stronger than we are.

Then our group drove the 6 hour really bumpy drive to the Masai Mara for two days – to see the great Mara and Serengeti Plains with wild animals in herds – wildebeasts, giraffe, elephants, lions, water buffalo, zebra and more – and to meet with Masai people and learn of their way of life. We went to a Masai village, and drove through past many of their villages going in and out of the Mara. I is all way too much for me to try to describe here and now, but has been deeply effecting for me.

Soon I will work to catch up with stories and photos. I leave in two days, a changed and grateful woman.