The Tibetans Call It a Bardo

In my early thirties, I attended a Silva Mind Control course to stop smoking. Others were there for weight control, memory training, and self-healing techniques. Over several weeks we were taught relaxation and visualization techniques, including the development of a mental laboratory complete with desk, calendar, files, visual screen, and healing medications. 

We were also told we'd have an experience of extrasensory perception on the last day of the training, which I found intriguing but presumed impossible for me. For that last session we were instructed to bring in three slips of paper, each showing only the name and city of an individual we privately knew to have an illness or physical problem.

To start the morning of the last day, we practiced by placing the body of a friend on our mental screen and scanning for problems of any sort. Following instructions, suddenly I saw and heard a motorcycle hit by a car. The motorcyclist's face wasn't visible, but because the man I was scanning owned a motorcycle, I expressed my alarm to the instructor, who suggested I find the date of the accident and send healing light to my friend. 

I closed my eyes, went to "alpha level" as instructed, visualized the calendar in my mental laboratory, and was astonished to see the pages turning rapidly until they stopped at a date in June. I assumed this to be in the future, as the session took place in February, so I did as the instructor suggested and pictured my friend bathed in white light.

After a break we were assigned partners, and the first one, whom I'd never met and didn't know in advance would be my partner, handed me a piece of paper with a man's name and the city of Seattle written on it. In alpha level, I visualized a man on my mental screen, and saw his whole left side was darker than his right. I didn't know what it meant. 

Using a technique we'd been taught, I imagined putting on this person's head, and was immediately torn by depression, sorrow, and resentment. I could feel my left side was crippled; I had no hearing in my left ear and no sight in my left eye. I knew hearing was intact in my right ear, but vision in my right eye was limited in some way, though I couldn't describe exactly how.  

Afterwards, my partner said this was the son of a dear friend; 21 years old and bitter because he'd been crippled on his left side in a motorcycle accident at an intersection where a car had ignored a stop sign. He had no hearing in his left ear and no sight in his left eye; hearing was normal in his right ear, but he had tunnel vision in his right eye. His recovery was slow, and he was despondent.

As I almost feared when asking her the accident's date, she named the same day in June I'd seen on my mental calendar. The motorcycle crash I'd pictured earlier that morning, before being assigned to this partner, had occurred the previous June!

Interactions with my next two partners were less clear but equally mind-blowing. With one, I pictured her subject with a brain like a walnut, the right side shriveled, then found she'd given me the name of a friend with brain cancer in the right hemisphere. With the other I kept seeing The Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz, focusing especially on the size of his nose. She admitted she didn't know anyone with a critical injury or illness, so had given me the name of a friend with chronic sinusitis.

I was disoriented for several weeks. The world as I perceived it had changed. In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche refers to a bardo as a juncture "when the possibility of liberation, or enlightenment, is heightened." My experience of this unexpected, new reality opened my mind and heart.

Since then, I've had many instances of knowing something that either had not happened yet, or had happened at a distance, without my direct knowledge, and was later confirmed. At first, I was frustrated by the lack of specificity, but over the years I've learned to relax into what I now believe is a universal flow. 

As a coach this manifested as psychic intuitions. I learned to slip into a meditative state and seek information beyond the obvious. My clients often commented, "I was just thinking that, but wasn't sure I was ready to talk about it," or "How did you know that? I've never told anyone."

My bardo experience left me with a lifelong sense of awe, triggered by the recognition, "If this is possible, then anything is possible."

Cave Drawings

(Published in The Enneagram of Death: Helpful Insights by the 9 Types of People on Grief, Fear, and Dyling, by Elizabeth Wagele.)

Research suggests that trauma survivors can head off long-lasting symptoms by letting friends know what they're going through. Susan Lien Whigham, "The Role of Metaphor in Recovery From Trauma"

I had not thought of my 2010 breast cancer diagnosis and surgery as trauma until I read the transcript of How the Brain Helps Us to Survive Trauma and understood that any life-threatening event can be traumatizing -- war, a terrible car accident, a natural disaster, a heart attack, cancer.

And the measure of how well or quickly we recover, compared to those who might develop post-traumatic stress disorder, is whether or not we can discharge the energy created by the shock. Some of our response to stress is determined by our own emotional resiliency, but much of it depends on whether our caregivers, family, and friends contribute to our feeling helpless or support our gaining a sense of control. We can begin to take charge of our fate when we're able to talk about our feelings, absorb the reality of our circumstances, and move into action.

My strongest urge while convalescing from surgery was simply to be listened to. And yet, I didn't really have the words to express what I was experiencing. Some of my friends interpreted my early quasi-silence as a desire to have my spirit lifted and entertained me with stories. I loved them for this, but I didn't want to hear stories, I wanted to be invited to express what was going on inside of me, needed them to be patient while I searched to find words for what I was experiencing.

So, I was relieved to read how listening for metaphors can help recovery from trauma. I remembered an earlier blog entry where I had tried to express my reaction to others' view of my "bravery": 

It's like driving in a heavy rainstorm late at night. You'd rather be home by a cozy fire, but you're on full alert, every sense attuned to what's happening in your immediate environment. You don't have time to be afraid.  

I didn't feel brave; I felt swept up in a tide of experience. During the two weeks of diagnosis, biopsy, and surgery I was in a kind of trance, floating, as if rocked on the waves of a deep ocean.

Notice the quality of water in these metaphors -- rainstorm, tide, waves, ocean. And notice also how these water metaphors are hard to pin down (another metaphor); how fruitless it would be to try to capture water with a "pin" of any sort. And yet, these watery images helped me embrace a shock too big to encompass with left-brain language.

Breast cancer brought death into my house. Paradoxically, the mastectomy brought a change to my body that meant I could stave off death, probably for many years, so I denied the surgery as trauma. It took almost six months for me to acknowledge that I saw the loss of my breasts as a disfigurement, to notice how I'd been  dressing to hide it from the world, how quickly I covered myself after a shower--when I used to be so happily naked.

I finally let in the loss by following my metaphors, diving in to the ocean, being swept by the tide to a barren shore, finding a flat terrain with strange plants and unknown dangers, dark caves filled with ancient drawings, wondering Who are these others who have been here before me? How can I survive this? 

And I knew I had to find my way through this metaphorical territory, go into the dark caves, experience the fear, learn from the ancient drawings, find guidance from others who had been there for a while. The spirits of these women encircled me as I wept for the loss of my breasts, they chanted with me as I celebrated life's changing seasons and embraced more enduring symbols of womanhood. 

 *   *   *

Seven years later, on April 15, 2017 I faced another loss, the death of my mother. Yes, she lived a long and healthy 104 years, and yes, I was exhausted during the final years of caring for her. But each process of grief has its own territory. As the months passed, I looked at the image above of women in community, and wept as they encircled me once more, reminding me of lifelong love from my Mom, who was also my best girlfriend.

Awakening Heart Energy

 

Starting a new business many years ago required taking risks, and my emotions were running wild. I needed a positive symbol of awakening heart energy and chose a tattoo of a dolphin swimming around my heart. When I told my mother, I was devastated by her response: "Why would you want to disfigure yourself?"

You've had similar experiences, I know. People who take risks to define themselves according to their own needs and dreams often have to overcome the almost insurmountable authority of social conditioning.

Many of us had the childhood experience of being told what we can't do: what's not normal or polite, what's dangerous or beyond our abilities. We were left with a sense of powerlessness to predict what will make us secure. Even as adults, these early messages haunt us: Who will criticize me for trying something new? Who will laugh at me for this idea I have? What will I do if this doesn't work out?

Sometimes we overcome our insecurity by whistling in the dark. (I'm not afraid! I'm not afraid!) But when faced with a tough decision, we may also endure an internal debate: What do I do now? Which of these paths do I take? Can I trust my own judgment? Will I give myself permission to go for what I want?

This is the paradox: when we act as if we're powerless, in that very act we give our power away. Until I found my own personal power, until I could stay clear about what I wanted to do and why, I fell into the victim role, pointing my finger outward. Initially, I was angry at how my mother, in spite of her generally loving support, could undermine my attempts to break the mold. I felt hurt because I wanted her approval. 

When I could finally come from my center and let go of my attachment to her opinion, I was freed from reacting to Mom's response and touched by her own fear of change.

How many times have you stopped yourself from doing something you were excited about because someone else put on the brakes? My mother was uncomfortable with the unfamiliar, just as your friends and family may be when you take a risk. My tattoo was right for me. And I revamped my business because it drew me to work that was richer and more meaningful, even though there were lean years. 

In the process, I learned an important lesson. Sometimes we begin to doubt ourselves when others criticize, worry, or question our urges to live our lives more fully. We need to remember they're actually questioning themselves, unable to imagine doing what we've found the courage and vision to do.

Years later my life was saved from breast cancer by a bilateral mastectomy. I was not afraid of losing my femininity, but I was concerned about damage to my dolphin. My surgeon was able to keep it almost completely intact, and the tattoo's symbolism has carried me through surgery, recovery, and more than a decade since then with an open heart.

Liebeslied

In a reframing of the Buddhist meditation on death, I have often immersed myself in visual and written arts reflecting the inevitable. 

This practice has taken many turns, one of which was deciding to have a natural burial at Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery. 

Now in my 84th year--though no threat looms with immediacy--it's no longer possible to ignore the eventuality of my own death. And I love the idea of going back to earth in the woods, with a natural marker.

Without the barrier of a coffin between me and the earth, my molecules can easily mix with those who've preceded me, and in the moment of dying I anticipate imagining the company I'll join. My growing list of those who've preceded me includes dear family, friends, pets--and also poets, writers, artists, spiritual teachers, psychologists, scientists, and musicians who have brought beauty and inspiration to my long life.

This practice of drawing others' spirits to me is a reminder to simply rejoice in what flows from intuition. Often, I've experienced the emotions of my son, a friend, or a client prior to contact -- not always realizing the mood's source until later. A friend I told about this said, "They're playing the strings of your guitar." I so resonate with that image, which echoes my lifelong favorite among Rainer Maria Rilke's poems, "Lovesong" (the original "Liebeslied" follows the translation by M.D. Herter Norton):

How shall I withhold my soul so that

it does not touch on yours? How shall I

uplift it over you to other things?

Ah willingly would I by some

lost thing in the dark give it harbor

in an unfamiliar silent place

that does not vibrate on when your depths vibrate.

Yet everything that touches us, you and me,

takes us together as a bow's stroke does,

that out of two strings draws a single voice.

Upon what instrument are we two spanned?

And what player has us in his hand?

O sweet song.

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, dass

sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie

hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?

Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendetwas

Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen

an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die

nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.

Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,

nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,

der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.

Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?

Und welcher Spieler hat uns in der Hand?

O süsses Lied.

Everything that touches us takes us together as does a bow's stroke that draws a single voice from two strings.

-----

The Symbol of the Wave

Philosopher Alan Watts' essay on Zen
used the metaphor of a wave ~
while each wave appears
separate and distinct
  all waves are part
of the ocean they share.
Likewise, there seem to be
nine patterns of personality fixations
yet each is whole in spirituality's ocean.