7 September 2020

The reason it’s been so difficult to write these last few days down has to do with my own shadows. I’ve very consciously only written about the most striking and light aspects of my visit here, but this - of course - only reflects half the story. In this world, everything comes in twos and you cannot deny any of it if you want to be a fully alive human being. The duality must be seen and responded to. The nature of the response is informed by the degree to which you can see the one behind the two in every single moment, but this does not nullify the conditioned and limited experience of duality. It is both/and, then beyond.

So, what is my shadow? It has been particularly intense between Paul and I these last two weeks. We have shared many long silences; some of them unutterably beautiful, some of them genuinely difficult. I have been forced to look at, in exquisitely minute and excruciating detail, my desire to fit in; to be loved and acknowledged. My guess is that most people have this, as we are social creatures. However, it is particularly strong with me. I’ve seen that this is because it’s not just a desire to be accepted and acknowledged that I have, but to be admired. This then bleeds into a competitive edge I find difficult to see, catch and tether, or a certain kind of attention to conduct and courtesy that actually becomes obsequiousness. It’s such a fine line to tread; that between proper courtesy and irritating imitation and obsequiousness. I am sure Paul felt frustrated with me on more than one occasion when I got this wrong.

What’s most difficult about this kind of work is that the desire to be courteous and correct is not necessarily a bad thing. In a sense, it is easier to deal with obvious shadows and bad habits, but what about the lights that still veil us from truth; from perfect presence in every instant? Just like shirk is that shadow-side of tawhid, obsequiousness is the shadow-side of courtesy and this smashed me. There is nowhere to run to, no escape from seeing once you set an intention to look as truly as you can at all the shadows and light you carry. Instead of detail the rest of what happened today (not much, except for a long and repetitive conversation with Mama Zee on the benches at sunset which was all about compassion), I will describe a dream I had here on the second night which foreshadowed all of this work.

My sleep here has been mostly clear and untroubled. The only flash I’ve had involved a situation playing out in what seemed to be a school of some kind. Though the details are fuzzy, there was a group of us moving through the corridors, and our task was to move a body in one grave to another site attached to a different classroom, where it was to join another. Both bodies seemed to be war heroes of some kind.

There was an old woman directing operations and, though her exact personality was unclear, she seemed to be a mix between Mary and another woman. She was full of light, and seemed pleased by our efforts to get the graves in order. She seemed set to embrace me once the task was complete, but then a shadow appeared from nowhere and totally engulfed me in the single most terrifying, but also the warmest, embrace I have ever experienced. It spoke to me from the heart of its overwhelming darkness: “Serve the balance.”

“I swear to,” I responded, instinctually. The dream ended.